In 2010 comShare published a study titled “Site Matters: The Value of Local Newspaper Web sites” (sponsored by the Newspaper Association of America, representing some 2000 US newspapers) that “measured consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding local newspaper Web sites and content compared with other online sources of local news and information.” While the study discussed which types of online content consumers most trusted for local information, one remarkable fact emerged that bears discussion in this blog: Newspaper web sites ranked highest in terms of the credibility and trustworthiness of their advertising. This is an important fact missed by many newspapers; the fact that their web sites are more capable of selling than any other local sites. Someone please alert the newspaper sales department! Newspapers are not only themselves trusted brands, as discussed in my previous post. They are also purveyors of trust: some of the faith that people have in the reliability of local news rubs off on the newspaper’s advertising as well. Place an ad in your newspaper’s web site and people will more likely believe the message. When you add to this the fact that local news consumers are also well-qualified leads–they live, work, and make purchase decisions in the same market area as the newspaper advertiser, you start to realize the extremely high value of newspaper advertising. In other words, newspaper consumers are also, demographically, the most likely consumers of the advertiser’s goods and services. It is great news for newspapers that their web sites are the most trusted sources of advertising. But they now need to (1) market this message to their advertisers, (2) position themselves as a high-end advertising solution, and (3) price themselves accordingly. This means using a “page sponsorship” model, not cheap banner ads. Sponsorship is an old and well-tested model. Newspaper web sites can charge advertisers a fixed fee, not based on ad impressions, but on visibility to the highly qualified local consumer community, for a range of sponsorship placements. These placements can be anything from a logo appearing beside the mast, to co-branding the daily email newsletter, to display ads that follow standard IAB banner sizes but are not sold by ad impressions. Sponsorship ads...
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- Digital Marketing (8)
- eLearning (2)
- Future of eBooks (10)
- Future of News (11)
- More Visitors: SEO & SEM (8)
- Newspaper Revenue (3)
- Tablet and Mobile (9)
- Technology & Analytics (6)
Contents:
- Data Preparation for Analytics
- Community Engagement: Moving from Broadcast to Conversations
- Schema.org, Entity Search, and Semantic SEO Tagging
- Responsive Design: One Site for All Devices
- How Mobile Fits Into Your Overall Digital Strategy
- Designing Tablet Reader Apps: Information Architecture
- Designing Tablet Reader Apps: User Experience Design
- Designing Tablet Reader Apps: Content Analysis
- Designing Tablet Reader Apps: Audience and Purpose
- Designing Tablet Reader Apps: More Bells and Fewer Whistles?
- The Work Behind Social Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Tips: Analytics and Performance
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Tips: Keyword Management
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Tips: Competitive Analysis
- Kids, News, and Video
- Tablets, eBooks, and eLearning Make Middle School Less… Awkward
- Epilogue: The Miranda Proposal, Future and Facts
- The Long Tail of Publishing
- Who Will Develop the Next eBook Platform?
- What is the eBook Platform of Tomorrow?
- The Rise of eBook Applications
- Social Reading: Beyond Gutenberg? Beyond Zuckerberg!
- eBooks and the Triple Bottom Line
- The Future of Books
- Prologue: It’s Time for eBooks to Evolve
- Journatic, The Tribune, and Offshore Outsourced Journalism
- Warren Buffet is No Fool
- The Ultimate News Device: Tablets
- The Future of News: It’s Not About You, It’s About Them
- Newsroom Software: WordPress and Other Open Source Options
- Paywalls: The Wrong Solution for News
- How to Drive Online News Revenue
- Don’t Build Your Own Newsroom
- Digital Editions and Portable News
- Why Photos are Critical to Online News
- Site Analytics: Intelligence Gathering for News Sites
- How To Do SEO Right
- From Newspapers to Digital Media: Follow John Paton
- What is SEO?
- SEO and SEM for News
- Trusted Advertising: The Value of Newspaper Web Sites
- Capitalizing on News Assets
- Where Did Newspapers Go Wrong?
- The Fall of the Newspaper
- Why Blogging Writes?