What Does a New Locable Partner Actually Get?
We've talked before about Locable providing a complete solution for publishers, that we're not a service provider not merely a technology provider and surely not a vendor but what does that mean?
- We provide a turn-key program for publishers to align technology with strategy and a set of proven activities.
In a nutshell, it means we have a completely turnkey website solution for publishers - you can go from a magazine to a media business in a week and we hold your hand as you grow. We even make money with you by splitting digital revenue rather than from you.
If you haven't done a demo with us then fully appreciating the breadth and depth of our program can be challenging but we decided to chronicle what the Locable Onboarding Package looks like for publishers. When you become an affiliate there are 3 major categories of benefits: technology, training, documentation & collateral. On an ongoing basis, we continue to support your efforts - though "support" is likely too light a word.
Contact us today to schedule a demo and learn if The Locable Approach is right for you.
Technology - The Community Content Engine (Locable's CMS)
With Locable, we build you a new website for your publication using our purpose-built content management system. Overnight you get a best-of-breed experience to build community online and help local businesses join the conversation. Here are a few technical highlights though we encourage you to review the full feature list:
- Streamlined Content Publishing
- Social Media Integration
- User Participation & User Generated Content
- A Business Directory Powered by Locable - User Reviews & Social Media Tools for Businesses
- A Contest Engine (Best-of's, Reader's Choice, Photo Contest & more)
- Advanced Analytics & Ad Serving
Training
If history has taught us anything it's that publishers love to do things the hard way and struggle to incorporate digital effectively into their existing workflow with limited resources and time. Thus, a MAJOR piece of becoming an affiliate is our training and operational support - we effectively become part of your digital team.
We start with The Locable Approach which is meant to ensure all activities related to digital are driving revenue - yes, all activities.
Next, we work with you to incorporate a Media Mindset rather than a publishing mindset which allows us to effectively leverage your brand to implement our Print-to-Web program. Publishers have great readership, relationships and relevance but are poor at converting print readers into web visitors and print advertisers into digital advertisers.
We help you get more out of the things you're already doing starting with the first issue by contextually driving readers online for supplemental content. We've put together a getting digital success checklist for publishers that identifies all of the things you should do or be doing to be successful online starting with setting up your email newsletter account and using a branded email address to things like introducing new recurring content segments that have been proven to work for other publishers in other markets.
We help you provide a compelling call-to-action for readers to go online to find: more pictures, more information, a contest, a chance to connect and share their opinions - whatever is right for a given article. We also help you connect with EXISTING advertisers, educate them on digital, understand their needs, identify a solution, and implement it efficiently.
Finally, we've developed a playbook. A literal set of documents, collateral and programs that you can use immediately. Want to run a contest or sell a sponsorship? We have a sales-sheet you can supply to your advertisers and a step-by-step checklist of things we will do together in print, with social media, with email and on the site to ensure the contest is successful. Moreover, our playbook engages your community to create and share events, business listings, customer reviews and recruit "Local Voices" aka local bloggers that cover topics that are thematically aligned with your publication. This type of User Generated Content doesn't just provide us with much-needed freshness but also turns your community of readers into evangelists.
We take the learning curve out of digital.
How can we do this? It's easy, we work with publishers all over the country and when you become a partner you join their team. As we work with more publisher and gain more experience we continue to develop more documents, more collateral and more expertise to help you grow your business. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to figure everything out for yourself?
It's for this reason that when we talk about Ongoing Support we're really talking about ongoing collaboration and you'll have complete access to the Affiliate-Only library of materials and our forthcoming educational video series for local businesses which you can offer as a value-add in addition to our sales-support videos meant to do the selling for you.
Interested in taking a leadership role online or simply want to avoid falling behind with new competitors coming into your market every week? We can help, schedule a demo to see how we can completely overhaul your digital presence and help you evolve from a publishing business into a media business - overnight!
For publishers that have recently invested in a new website or are not a great fit to join Locable as an Affiliate we now also offer Publisher Concierge which enables you to benefit from our expertise and network in a way that works for you.
