4 Ways to Drive Revenue in Print Publications
In part 1 and 2 of this series we talked about different revenue opportunities publishers have with digital advertisers as well as with their online audience (readers). In part 3, we’ll review the more traditional print advertising opportunities. In parts 4-6, we’ll cover offline revenue opportunities and opportunities for selling marketing tools and services to local businesses.
A lot of opportunities we’ve previously identified for digital also apply in some form in print. The main difference is the way it's presented. Let’s take a look!
1) Traditional Print Ads
- Article Add-on from ESPN
The main focus of most advertiser-supported publications is traditional print ads. They typically range in size from a full page to a 1/8 of a page and appear throughout the publication similar to the way banner ads are shown next to articles online. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory so let's move on…
2) Article Add-ons/Native Advertising
Article Add-ons are a special type of print ad where the ad is more contextually relevant to the article it appears next to. For example, say you have an article about the local real estate market. An article add-on could be an ad from a real estate agent that highlights the top 5 Things to consider before putting your house on the market. Even though that ad itself will have the advertisers branding, it’s more about education and therefore more integrated into the article presentation (an article within an article or a sidebar). This could also be considered a form of native advertising.
- Special Advertising Section for Golf Courses
3) Special Advertising Sections
Special advertising sections are a great way to engage readers around a specific topic or theme. It could be a gift guide, list of local attractions, restaurant guide, coupon flyer, or a variety of other possibilities. This could take the form of an insert, a separate publication or just additional pages within your existing publication but in any case it’s a great way to engage local businesses while providing something that's fun to read for your audience.
4) Advertorials
Advertorials are an article that highlights a local business or person. Many publishers are against running advertorials in print but if written in a way that is clearly educational and/or entertaining there is nothing wrong with including them in your editorial strategy. Of course if it comes off as salesy in any way you risk alienating your readers so it’s important to set specific quality guidelines around what will and will not be accepted. Many publishers will also argue that they can’t charge for these but even if that’s the case, which it’s not, think of all the ways you can use this as a sales tool to convince the businesses your featuring to purchase other ads (both in print and online).
To wrap up, the ways in which publishers monetize their print publications has remained largely unchanged over the years, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new ways to leverage it. When combined with a good digital strategy, you can take things like article add-ons and make them more valuable to your advertisers by sending your readers to your website for additional articles, photo galleries, videos, events and business information that further highlight their expertise (all additional revenue opportunities). You can also start to leverage the user generated content on your website to create the special advertising sections. Whatever you choose, it’s important to begin to think about how you can create a fully integrated experience for readers and businesses alike or you’ll risk losing their attention all together.
How would you leverage print to drive more online engagement? Let us know by leaving a comment below and don’t forget to come back on Monday for Part 4.
