I never win contests. I am not lucky, but I still try. I join StepBets and buy lottery tickets and tag my friends in every Instagram contest that shows up in my feed. And do I win? Almost never. But does that stop me from entering? No way! Because I could win. And that’s what contest ad campaigns are all about — that feeling of excitement and that drive to engage.

I spoke with Julie Foley and Liz Crider Huff, of Second Street, about how you can add these contests to your advertising mix to draw in readers — and big-time advertising revenue.

Advertisers want to build relationships with your readers and have a way to market to them directly at a time when that person is most receptive to their offerings. The contest advertising campaign both encourages engagement with readers, and collects data from those readers.

If your readers will fill out a survey or agree to provide advertisers their email address, you’re providing something nearly as valuable as a sale — a chance to market directly to that person, and encourage a sale down the line. And with Google and Facebook hoovering up all the data your readers could possibly share, it’s become much harder for advertisers to get any information on their potential customers. That’s where contests come in.

“If you focus on email, there’s a lot of revenue to be had,” Huff explains. “It’s the best way to get people to engage with your content, and you don’t have to rely as much on social media.”

“You don’t want to be worrying what Mark Zuckerberg is doing,” Foley adds. “When you control your database, you control your destiny.”

But to build up that database, you have to give readers something to engage them. Quizzes, surveys and ballots are all ways to do this. This “middle-of-the-funnel” approach creates a solution that advertisers need most, and which local media is uniquely positioned to provide.

One of the best ways to start with this approach is to monetize something your media company is likely already doing: a best-of list. “If you do nothing else, ballots are a huge revenue opportunity that everyone should be doing,” she says.

To successfully monetize a best-of ballot, combine your print and digital products. By putting your ballots online, you make it easier for readers to submit entries, and for businesses to build up grassroots efforts around nominations. It also gives you the opportunity to sell sponsorships for the ballots, either as a whole or for different categories. Later, you can create a digital list of winners, creating yet another sponsorship opportunity, since you can have winners buy ads in the digital product or pay for enhanced listings.

Whatever you’re doing digitally for your promotion, add a print component if you can. Have paper ballots for the people who want them. Publish your best-of winners in a special print section before it goes on your website. Utilize all of your channels to encourage the most engagement and draw in the most revenue.

As a reminder, when presenting readers with surveys or quizzes or any kind of contest that asks them to provide their personal information, you should be up front about the fact that you and/or your advertising partner will be using that information later to reach out to them. It is imperative that you be honest with your readers about why you are collecting their information and how you will use it, and that you stay true to your word, or you risk losing the trust of your audience.

Another unique element of local coverage that can be monetized is high-school sports. High-school athletics has a huge local audience, from the student athletes to their parents and families to school alumni. And chances are, you’re already running “athlete of the week” stories or fun contests, so why not monetize that coverage?

You can’t go wrong with kids and pets and high-school sports,” Foley says.
Sports coverage is perfect for a school spirit photo contest, a “best mascot” ballot, or features on the school marching band or cheer squad. And there are a lot of advertisers who want to get in front of this audience. Does the local bank want to promote student loans or college savings accounts? Have them sponsor a story or series, or a contest. Get the local college to partner on a quiz. And get the community involved. If your contest pits one school against another, people will get involved and they will participate. “Anything that has a great prize for the school will drive engagement,” Foley adds.

Making the leap from top-of-the-funnel ads to middle-of-the-funnel is not the easiest thing to change, and it involves more work. Huff recommends having conversations with your advertisers to find out what they want, and be willing to customize your offering to each client. It’s not as cut-and-dried as the typical print ad, but having the conversation at the start will lead to real results.

Where responses to top-of-the-funnel ads are hard to quantify, middle-of-the-funnel projects allow you to bring real data to your clients. If your readers are filling out a survey to enter a contest, they’re telling your advertiser about themselves. They’re saying, “I may need to buy a new car in six months,” or “I’m in the market for a hearing aid,” or “I’d like to buy a fishing license” (all successful promotional campaigns Huff and Foley have run), and your advertisers are getting their product in front of the people who will actually be compelled to buy it.

For more ideas on how you can branch out and find new promotional advertising opportunities for your clients, you can check out the slide deck Huff and Foley used during their presentation at the 2018 Mega-Conference. In it, you’ll find success stories about their clients, and ideas for partnerships you can aim for with your own promotions.

Are you already running contests and monetizing them? We want to know about it! Tell us what contests you’ve run and how you engage your readers with promotional ads. You can email jennifer@newsmediaalliance.org, or find me on Twitter at @EditrixJen. And when you get in touch, let us know what other media business tips and tricks you’d like to learn about this year!

The post How To: Use Contests to Increase Your Ad Revenue appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

The Paths to Subscription

Undoubtedly the most anticipated presentation came from our colleagues at the American Press Institute. The API team presented the results of a new study of 4,100 recent newspaper subscribers focused on what convinced them to start paying for local news. The researchers discovered that there are nine different types of subscribers, and thus nine different paths to subscription. However, all nine had one thing in common: They typically spent a year or more engaging with the product — whether that was through reading the newspaper, visiting the publication’s website or interacting with reporters on social media — before finally committing to a subscription.
What does this information mean for you? Along with finding out how readers arrive at the decision to become subscribers, API also learned what can be done to help casual readers get over that barrier to becoming regular subscribers. For some, that means making the subscription process more seamless and streamlined; for others it means providing more local content, or engaging more with the community.

#2018MegaConf https://t.co/u1R7OvyFgs

— News Media Alliance (@newsalliance) February 27, 2018

Engaging Ads Win Over Consumers and Advertisers

During a pre-conference session, the Second Street team taught attendees about the value of competition. Not with each other, though — between consumers. That’s because they showed the audience the kind of revenue they can draw in if they run competition ads. Sweepstakes, photo contests, ballots, “best of” lists — all are excellent ways to engage readers with the ads and draw in money for the client and the newspaper.
Not only do competition ads drive revenue, but they also allow the advertiser to collect valuable consumer data — like email addresses — so they can better target users in the future. For clients, they will gain better knowledge of and access to potential customers, which means that your publication becomes more valuable to them as well. Anything you can do to show advertisers your value, while at the same time engaging consumers, will help you increase revenue, Second Street explained. And the results, as you can see below, can be quite impressive.

Events Can Earn Dollars — and Respect

The Hustle is known for its newsletter for business- and techy-savvy millennials, but it started out as an event company and, as they explained, events are still where they do big business. The company built their reputation by creating HustleCon in 2015, a major event to inspire young businesspeople and bring together great minds and aspiring greats. After the event’s success, the company looked to newsletters to keep things going, and they’ve continued to exist primarily as an event and newsletter business. While you can read news on The Hustle’s blog and use their browser extension to get snippets of their hand-picked news each time you log on, their big products are a daily email and a series of events.
When they realized that their audience was skewing heavily male, they added more women-focused events to their schedule. They didn’t change their core product; they stuck to what they know — business and tech — and simply added women to the mix to help their existing product reach an untapped market. In doing so, they were able to add more events without having to start from scratch.

(Re)Building a Brand Can Go a Long Way

Who you are matters, but who you present yourself to be may matter more, at least according to marketing genius, Andy Cunningham. The woman who helped launch Apple in the ‘80s and has driven the brand-centric marketing push of the 2000s spent an hour and a half helping news publishers think about their own brands and the foot they need to put forward to keep or gain readers. Cunningham presented information from her new book, Get to Aha! Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate Your Competition, and discussed how news organizations can figure out their own corporate DNA and what that means for how they move forward.
When you understand your company’s DNA, Cunningham explained, you can find out how best to adapt to the times and serve your 21^st century customers. Cunningham offered a DNA test (found in her slides here) to help publishers discover what kind of company they are. Once you know, you can craft your mission statement and go out and tell your story. That story will help you position yourself to better attract the kinds of business partners — from advertisers to readers — that are the right fit for your publication.
We’ll be delving more deeply into some of these topics in the coming weeks as part of our on-going “How To” series. If you were at Mega-Conference and want to hear more from particular presenters — or if you missed it and want us to catch you up — you can reach out to us by emailing jennifer@newsmediaalliance.org or tweeting @EditrixJen. You can also check out the tweets from Mega-Conference by following the #2018MegaConf hashtag or checking out the collection below.
#2018MegaConf Tweets

The post Key Industry Takeaways From Mega-Conference 2018 appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

CALL FOR IDEAS

Calling all media startups and businesses with solutions for news media!

Get your product or service in front of thousands of news organizations looking for new ways to grow revenue, drive subscriptions, engage their audiences and streamline production.

ABOUT THE CONTEST

The News Media Alliance represents over 2,000 news media organizations in the US and Europe who are producers of original news content, including the largest major national newspapers and international outlets, smaller local dailies and weeklies, and digital-first and digital-only publications.

If this sounds like an audience you want to reach with your product or service, then send us your idea and you could be featured on our website and social media channels, viewed regularly by thousands of news media executives, and included in our weekly newsletter, newsXchange, which has a circulation of over 14,000 members of the news media industry!

The point is to find the best New(s) Ideas for our members, and to give you what could be the biggest break in your company’s history – the opportunity to get your company and product or service in front of big-name publishers.

One idea per month will be selected to be featured. In December, our members will vote on the best New(s) Idea from the monthly winners featured throughout year. The winner who receives the most votes will be awarded the opportunity to present their solution on an exclusive webinar for Alliance members, a dedicated eblast to the Alliance membership of nearly 9,000 individuals, and complimentary Associate membership in the Alliance for 2019.

View the 2018 winners

HOW TO ENTER

To enter, complete the form below (or if you’d prefer, click here) and provide a link to your best presentation of your idea – the more visual and interactive your presentation is, the better your chances of being featured. We want videos, interactive slide presentations, compelling product pitches in the vein of TEDx, product demos, etc.

If you don’t have anything fancy to share, but you have a really great idea that will knock news media companies’ socks off, that’s OK. You can just send us a short video of you talking about it shot on your phone, or a really excellent blog post.

The point is to find the best New(s) Ideas for our members, and to give you what could be the biggest break in your company’s history – the opportunity to get your company and product or service in front of big-name publishers.

To Enter: Fill out the form below or click here by the 6th of the month. The first deadline is in March 2018!

Please contact Alliance Communications Manager Lindsey Loving with questions or for more information.

RULES

Applicants may submit more than one product or service per company, per month.

The deadline for submissions is the 6^th of each month. The winner for each month will be notified and featured before the end of the month. The last entry deadline for new submissions is November 6, 2018.

Submissions not selected will be included in the entries for the following months, unless otherwise specified by the applicant.

SUBMISSION FORM

Please complete the form below.

The post New(s) Ideas appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Communications Manager
571.366.1009
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2018

News Media Alliance Wins Two Gold Awards in Association TRENDS 2017 All Media Contest

Arlington, Va. – The News Media Alliance has been honored with two awards – a Gold award in the “Best Advocacy Campaign” category for its Campaign to Support Real News, and a Gold award in the “Book/Manual/Catalog” category for its 2017 News Media Alliance Playbook – in the 2017 Association TRENDS 2017 All Media Contest. They were two of nearly 300 entries in the association publications contest.

“We are honored to be recognized by Association TRENDS for the Support Real News Campaign and Playbook,” stated Alliance President & CEO, David Chavern. “I’m extremely proud of our staff, who worked hard to produce these programs that would be valued by our members and the public. We’re grateful to the designers, writers, and reviewers who contributed to helping us create these award-winning programs.”

Award recipients were honored today at the 39th Annual Salute to Association Excellence at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., where Alliance VP of Innovation, Michael MaLoon; VP, Public Policy, Danielle Coffey; and VP, Membership and Business Development, Michelle Harris received the awards on behalf of the Alliance.

The Alliance conceived the Support Real News campaign to respond to the growing problem of fake news and to highlight the importance of real news, provided by respected journalists employed by trusted news organizations. The 2017 Playbook offers an introduction to the Alliance and the news media industry, and was designed as a portable flipbook that could be used on the Hill with lawmakers and in meetings with members and partners.

The Association TRENDS All-Media Contest is an annual competition held exclusively for associations, recognizing the most creative and effective communication vehicles developed in the industry over the prior year. The 2017 competition included about 300 entries in 23 categories of association communications.

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Association TRENDS is dedicated to providing association executives and industry partners the training, data and insights you need to better understand and serve your organization. See Association TRENDS for more industry analysis and news.

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News Media Alliance Wins Two Golds in Association TRENDS Contest appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Media Contact:

Lindsey Loving
Manager, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
571.366.1009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

News Media Alliance Ad Puts Exclamation Point on Campaign: “We Are Real News”

Next phase of campaign will focus on trust

Arlington, Va. – The News Media Alliance today launched the final ad of the second phase of its Campaign to Support Real News. The new ad puts an exclamation point on the storyline it began in October 2017 with a strong statement: “We Are Real News”, and unlike other news “publishers”, our high-quality investigative journalists are committed to reporting the truth.

The campaign, which initially launched in March 2017, was created to shine a light on the harm to the public caused by fake news and the importance of real news produced by respected, trusted news organizations employing these journalists.

The latest phase of the campaign, “What is Real News?” focuses on the need for news literacy. Each launch of this phase has included a print newspaper ad, with each message building on the one preceding it. The third and final ad distinguishes real news providers as those who “take our responsibility to report the truth very seriously” and “work tirelessly to uphold our commitment to the truth because at the end of the day, if we don’t, no one else will.”
The ads have appeared in several Alliance member newspapers representing over 14.25 million print editions (as well as other non-member newspapers) over the last ten months.

“The fact is, our members are the ones who are out there investigating the stories people want to know. Without them, there would be no accountability by public officials,” stated Alliance President & CEO, David Chavern. “The sensationalist, unsupported-by-facts ‘news’ stories you are seeing out there are just noise that detracts from the quality news being delivered by trusted news organizations.”

Throughout the campaign, the Alliance has unveiled a variety of resources on its website and social media channels to help the public learn how to distinguish real news from fake, and to take action by supporting real news in the form of subscriptions and donations. To coincide with today’s launch, the Alliance is offering new sharable social media graphics that explain common journalism terms and phrases that people often get wrong; and a listicle of the best books on combating fake news.

As this phase of the campaign comes to an end, the Alliance is looking ahead to how the campaign will evolve.
“We will be hosting an event this spring centered around the critical issue of trust in news media,” stated Chavern. “With people in positions of power attacking the credibility of respected news media, it is that much more of a challenge for us to have to overcome to help the public know who they can trust. But we are up to the challenge and I believe that ultimately, consumers are smart enough to figure it out.”

Partners of the Support Real News campaign include:

• Center for Public Integrity
• Inland Press Association
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
• Local Media Consortium
• Newseum Institute
• Southern Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA)
• Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Center for News Literacy
• University of Washington
• WAN-IFRA
• World Editors Forum
• Washington State University Edward R. Murrow College of Communication

For more information, visit www.newsmediaalliance.org/supportrealnews

Click here to view the campaign video.

For a list of programs, articles, tips and other resources on evaluating news for authenticity, visit www.newsmediaalliance.org/isitrealnews

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The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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We Are Real News

We take our responsibility to report the truth very seriously. That is why we invest in the resources needed to seek out and report the truth.

As part of its Support Real News campaign, the News Media Alliance is proud to provide this print ad, as well as 15-sec digital banner and cube GIFs, for use in your print and online newspapers.

Print Ad:

The print ad, available in full- and quarter-page, can be customized with your name and logo.

They can be downloaded in EPS and PDF formats.
Full-Page PDF (10″ x 21″): Click here

Quarter-Page PDF (5.7″ x 10″): Click here
Full-Page EPS (10″ x 21″): Click here 
Quarter-Page EPS (5.7″ x 10″): Click here 

Digital ads:

Link to: www.newsmediaalliance.org/isitrealnews

Digital Cube (300 x 250px) – GIF:

Digital banner (728 x 90px) – GIF:

Return to the Support Real News Home Page

The post Support Real News – ‘We Are Real News’ Ad appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Flash forward eight months and Gehring has sold Relay Media to Google and is in the process of naming his new startup.

Wait, what? Slow down!

In May 2016, Gehring brought publishers an AMP converter. This lovely piece of technology helped publishers convert content to fast-loading, mobile-friendly web pages. At mediaXchange, one year later, Relay Media had onboarded 60 publishers with zero churn. By the time Google acquired the converter, they had 100 publishers on board.

“Google was in a much better position to scale the availability of that converter technology,” he said. “After a lot of conversations, it made sense to sell Relay Media.”

His team went to Google, but Gehring made the decision to remain independent. Google will close down Relay Media, per the deal, but the converter will continue to operate as part of Google’s platform.

Gehring describes the process of letting go as a mixed bag. “On one hand, saying you sold your company to Google is a very valuable thing. On the other hand, my two cofounders are some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked with.” He says it took him a few weeks to get over not working directly with them anymore.

Gehring is still very much focused on AMP with his new startup. He is co-founding the new project with Sam Parnell, former CTO of Bleacher Report. Parnell was an early advisor for Relay Media.

The duo hopes to build out a content distributer for publishers. The business is still in the early stages of development, but Gehring says it follows in his original vision of using AMP as the standard for the web.

When Gehring worked at Google earlier in his career, the tech giant wanted publishers to link to each other to improve placement within search. He laughed, acknowledging publishers weren’t too keen on giving the competition page views.

“Linking out was always challenging, because you’re sending users away,” he said.

Worse, you were sending users’ data away.

“Publishers have become much, much more aware of how bad it is to leak users’ data,” he said, citing ad fraud and misinformation campaigns. To solve this, he imagines a portal that maintains user data and sessions on existing domains without punishing them in search results.

“We’re still in the early days of it,” he said. “We’re having conversations with publishers and gathering info.”

The post Accelerator Pitch Winner Sells to Google appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Media Contact:

Lindsey Loving
Manager, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
571.366.1009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

News Media Alliance to Host adXchange 2018 Following Mega-Conference in San Diego

November 13, 2017

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance will host its second adXchange event for news media companies and advertisers February 28 – March 2, 2018 at the Embassy Hilton Suites – San Diego Bay Downtown in San Diego, CA. The conference will take place immediately following Mega-Conference 2018, for which the Alliance is a first-time partner, along with Inland Press Association, Local Media Association, Southern Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA), and local host association in 2018, the California News Publishers Association.

The inaugural adXchange was held in September 2017 in Chicago. AdXchange is an event for newspaper and advertising and agency executives, designed to facilitate productive meetings and discussions in a one-on-one environment. In addition to meetings, throughout the two-day conference, attendees will have opportunities to hear from thought leaders on current hot topics and innovation in the news media industry, and participate in networking events.

“We are excited to be a partner of Mega-Conference this year and also to be able to hold adXchange while many of our members are already in San Diego for Mega-Conference,” said Michelle Harris, Alliance Vice President of Membership & Development. “These private meetings with advertisers and agencies are incredibly valuable to our members and we are pleased to be able to offer them once again.”

The conference will begin with registration from 3:00 – 6:00 pm on Wednesday, February 28. The event will get underway on Thursday, March 1 with a breakfast and presentation, followed by private meetings. Meetings continue through 1:00 pm on Friday, March 2.

News Media Alliance members receive complimentary registration to adXchange. Non-members who represent a news media organization can register for $300 per person.

For more information, visit https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/nma_event/adxchange/.

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The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News Media Alliance to Host adXchange 2018 appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Media Contact:

Lindsey Loving
Manager, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
571.366.1009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

News Media Alliance Applauds Copyright Office Move to Modernize Newspaper Registration

November 6, 2017

Arlington, VA – Today the Copyright Office published in the Federal Register a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking allowing newspapers to use cost-saving technology for copyright registrations. The News Media Alliance applauds the Copyright Office for making this transition to a more modern and technology-friendly format, a move that will save newspapers valuable resources and create efficiencies across industry and government.

The Library currently identifies over 400 periodicals that must submit copies of their print circulations so that history can be preserved for future generations. The PDF format, already in use at most newspapers, is a future-proof technology that will allow for history to be captured and preserved.

“This transition will result in increased submissions and less resources dedicated to compliance,” stated David Chavern, News Media Alliance President & CEO. “Bringing the archiving process into step with modern technology helps ensure that newspapers can focus on their critical role of reporting news and information necessary for an informed democracy and a civil society.”

The Copyright Office accepts voluntary submissions of periodicals (in most cases simultaneously with deposits with the Library) for registration of the content to be protected under copyright law. A necessary first step is registration with the Copyright Office. The transition from microfilm to PDF will facilitate registration, making it easier for newspapers to protect their work and receive increased return on investments.

News organizations invest significant capital in newsgathering operations, and therefore have an interest in protecting their content against unauthorized misappropriation. The Alliance will work with the Copyright Office and the Library to produce materials that will help newspapers comply with the new requirements.

The proposal will be put out for comments to be received within 30 days, until December 6, 2017.  A final rule is expected to be adopted shortly thereafter. There will be a transition period until December 31, 2019, during which time both PDF and microfilm submissions will be accepted.

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The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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