Community publishing is about connecting buyers and sellers. Always has been and always should be. In the digital age, the connection is taking on a slightly different feel from your proven print channel. Today’s consumers move seamlessly between brick and mortar to digital. They expect and want the same or a similar experience whether they are buying in-store, online or at the curbside. What a consumer sees in your publication, they want to find when they Google a business or seek them out on social media.

Think of your business’ digital transformation. It has not always been an easy road. Now, think of your advertisers. They are going through some of the same struggles. It used to be that placing an ad in the paper would bring people in the door — it still does. But, with a bit of extra help from digital, the power of print is lifted. Advertisers cannot rely on one or two advertising channels to earn new customers. Just like you cannot rely on the same old marketing tactics to attract your readers. 

Borrell Associates regularly surveys 2500 local businesses to understand their digital transformation. According to the Marketing Minute, local businesses are buying at least two digital services to market and advertise their business and two non-digital services (likely print and direct mail). Does your team have an answer to the digital half of the equation? In 2022, we suggest you should. 

January Spring works exclusively with publishers to help you build a new, digital revenue stream. We do the heavy lifting: teaching your team to sell digital, building and managing your digital campaigns and reporting and demonstrating results. 

Digital can be overwhelming. Many publishers ask us where to start. Here are three easy ways to create near-term digital revenue for your publication: 

Event targeting

We can target any event in your community with our digital geofencing technology. Many community publishers benefit from a robust calendar of events. Use our event playbook to build new digital promotions to wrap around every event in your calendar. 

First our team can put together a pre-event targeting campaign by serving ads to those in the area using keywords related to the event. Second, our team can geofence the event and serve ads to those that attend during the event. Third, we can collect device ID’s of those that attended the event and serve them your client’s ads for up to 30 days after the event. 

Our event playbook can increase event attendance by as much as 35% and get you digital ad revenue. 

Category specific ads 

Tell the story about what digital ads can do for your advertisers. Restaurants, for example, can serve ads to those looking for places to eat and to those that dine at their competition with our geofencing tactics. The results speak for themselves with this type of campaign. 

Our conversion and Click Through Rate (CTR) are usually double the industry standard. Everything we do is fully transparent, and you will be able to provide clients links to our reporting dashboard. The dashboard tracks clicks and conversions as the campaign is going. 

Let us tell you the story of a Mexican Restaurant that used a combination of geo-fencing, competitive conquesting, and keyword retargeting to bring people through the door. This restaurant geofenced all of its competitors and we were able to serve ads to the patrons who went to those locations. We also set up a conversion zone around the advertiser’s location to capture what competitors drove the most foot traffic into their place. The restaurant could keep track of who saw their ads and who walked into their restaurant. 

We got results  

Over the five-month-long campaign, the ad earned the restaurant 205,640 impressions, 309 clicks and 72 conversions, ie. the number of customers that walked through their door after seeing the ad! 

 Don’t forget about using your own audience to target 

Because we work exclusively with publishers, we understand that community businesses buy ads from you because they want to reach your readers. We’ll help you add readers from your digital pub into the campaigns we manage on your behalf.  

It doesn’t get much easier than telling your advertisers, “We’ll help you reach our loyal readers in print, in digital and everywhere they go across the web, mobile and in-app.” 

One of the reasons we work with publishers is that you have amazing brands. You are well recognized in your community and well respected. We partner with you, helping you take digital to market. Think of us as your back-office digital marketing team.