Isn't Digital a Lot of Extra Work?

Ah, the ever persistent concern of publishers longing to extend their business but at a loss to determine how.

With most local publications the publisher/owner/editor/salesperson is stretched thin and the notion of adding more work sounds like just about the worst possible thing even if it means adding revenue. We understand, we run lean too, and that means making sure any activity that isn't extremely valuable has to be improved or removed and replaced with things that deliver more value.

Of course, digital can't wait and failing to embrace digital effectively could not only render your advantage moot but could result in your publication failing to remain viable. With that in mind, how can you embrace digital and not simply pile on?

Describing something that someone has never seen before can be a challenge especially when somewhat complex. Don't let that confusion stop you from seeking to understand.

In short, most publishers run their business with brute force. It's unclear why this is, perhaps they look at big national magazines and think they can simply mimic their approach. Of course, local magazines and national magazines are not in the same business and are barely in the same industry.

With our locally-relevant, human-interest orientation, we don't really play in the "news" space yet these 7 Habits of Successful Hyper Local Sites largely apply to all publishers. We're a big fan of things like: curation, advertising as content (not foreign to magazines), high-impact ad units and sponsorships (our ads get 5-10x the click through rate of the Internet average), educating local businesses on how to succeed online, and non traditional revenue streams.

The importance of implementing a "Value Multiplier." We've coined the phrase Value Multiplier to signal how important it is for lean organizations like local publishers to get more than one benefit out of a given activity. One example is the use of a digital edition, getting someone to read your digital edition gives a 1 value for one action (taking the time to create and post the digital edition). Did you know you can get 2 or 3 different types of value with negligible additional work?

If you create an article highlighting the current issue, perhaps including a modified version of the publisher letter (yes the one you've already created for print), and include links to other web articles or related content such as contests, events in the calendar or business listings in the directory along with the digital edition embedded into said-article then you get at least two additional benefits. First, you can easily share this article to highlight your digital edition and any of your visitors can also share it resulting in driving traffic directly to your site rather than Issuu or whoever your provider is and this is traffic that is also exposed to your other related content. Second, you get SEO (yep, Google will see that page and understand what it's about whereas a digital edition is a blackbox and not valuable to you from an SEO perspective) which is even more powerful when coupled with social shares because Google likes to reward articles that are shared to social media.

You see, local publishers are already doing the things they need to be successful online they're just usually doing them wrong resulting in a lot of work and a little return - generally none of which is financial. When you combine the Locable Approach with our unique website publishing technology and a solution approach to sales you can immediately become more profitable and valuable to your advertisers with minimal work... seriously!

Apply now to learn more about how joining the Locable Publisher Network can benefit your business.