One Thing Every Publisher Needs To Do In 2015

Call it a New Years resolution or call it a goal but the one thing every publisher needs to do in 2015 is to start treating their digital presence as an opportunity to drive real revenue rather than a necessary evil! Even if you're like many publishers and look at your website as an expense, it's relatively easy to turn that around quickly. In 2015 resolve to leverage your digital efforts to increase revenues and your bottom line with this simple plan.

1) Find Community Sponsors

What is it? Community sponsorships are an advertising package that helps an advertiser show their support for their community,  join the conversation that you cultivate online and align their business with the values of your community. While you can put any type of package together, we recommend including a premium directory listing, a snapshot ad for them to promote an offer (i.e., a free consultation or 10% off), a monthly article, and perhaps most importantly their logo on every page of your site as shown below.

Community Sponsorship Footer With Links To Their Directory Listing

Of course, you should make sure to share their articles via email and social media as well as occasionally thank them for their support where it makes sense!

How does it help your advertisers? Advertisers first and foremost want to find new customers so they will benefit greatly from the added exposure this package provides as you grow your audience, especially from having their logo on every page of your site. The directory listing provides a strong local presence and should be referenced in all future articles or events on your site that reference the business. The monthly article is their opportunity to build their brand by being the local "expert" while the snapshot ad is their opportunity to convert your readers into paying customers. The whole deal!

What You Charge Your Advertisers: $75-200+ per month

Revenue Possibility: $300 - $2000+ per month

Considerations: For those publishers who are just getting started or have little or no traffic, pitch the community sponsorship as an investment in the community since you as a publisher are building a site to engage the audience the sponsors ultimately want to reach. Make sure to lock them in for 12 months at the "lower" price and then raise it after you've built up traffic and engagement. This way they will get the benefits of your efforts as you build up your audience while you can drive some revenue. A win-win!

Premium Directory Listing

2) Up-Sell Premium Directory Listings

What is it? Many publishers have a directory but miss the opportunity to make it a truly valuable resource for their advertisers. A good directory should have all the basic factual information such as name, description, logo, social links, photos, etc. but as a publisher you have an unfair advantage over other directory websites which is that you can create content to cultivate and engage an audience and promote the listings. This advantage can and should command a premium especially when combined with things like reviews, videos, and even spotlight ads (small ads that highlight the businesses listing on your home page).

How does it help your advertisers? As eluded to above, a listing with you is not the same as other listing services. When you write about businesses, you can and should link to their businesses listing to facilitate discovery. Likewise, when you post an event you should link to the venue (also a business listing). This way when you share articles and events via Facebook and email you are not only promoting your content but their business as well. It's a uniquely local strategy that drives awareness and engagement for those businesses in your directory.

What You Charge Your Advertisers: $15-25 per month

Revenue Possibility: $600-2,000 per month (let's assume that the average community has approximately 2,500 businesses and the average publisher has about 40-120 advertisers so a target of 40-80 paid listings which is completely reasonable even if you only up-sell your existing advertisers)

Considerations: Having the right tool is critical to being able to manage the process and make it worthwhile for your advertisers. While they're many great directory tools out there, Locable's Community Content Engine allows for easy cross-linking of articles, events, and listings, automated local spotlight ads and a reviews widget that allows businesses to show off their reviews on their own sites.

Social Promotion Design & Administration

3) Offer "Agency Like" Services

What is it? Agencies exist to manage the marketing and advertising needs of businesses but not every business needs an agency and not every business can afford one. In either case, those businesses may still need the services that an agency would typically provide such as social promotion design and administration, audience extension (a specific form of ad buying), web design, listing management and more and you're in an excellent position to help them out because you can also provide the audience to ensure these campaigns are successful. For example, social promotions can be leveraged to help your advertisers build their email list, audience extension can help them reach beyond your audience to reinforce their message and good web design allows you to help them convert those eyeballs into new customers. Since you likely already have a relationship with many local businesses, it doesn't take much extra effort to bring up these options during your regular sales conversations. This is a great way to diversify your revenue streams while providing tremendous value to your advertisers.

How does it help your advertisers? Offering "agency like" services is all about offering your advertisers additional ways to work with someone they already like and trust. Many times they have more money to spend but not on the same things they already buying from you. Other times, they likely know they need to be doing some of these things but don't want to have to think about it. If you have a good relationship you'll be able to guides them to the right choices and they'll also appreciate that they only have to deal with one person. This is all about providing more value to your advertisers and delivering results.

What You Charge Your Advertisers: $100-$1,000s per promotion, site or package

Revenue Possibility: Unlimited (but a good target would be about $27,000 per year broken down as follows: 4 Social Promotions @ $1,000 per promotion, 2 custom web design projects @ $2,500 per site, 5 Audience Extension packages @ $300 per month)

Considerations: Assuming that you don't have the time or expertise to fulfill these types of offerings yourself, having the right partner is critical. You'll want a partner that can both support the sales process but also execute the campaigns on your behalf when you need it and at a reasonable price. Locable offers these types of solutions including the IMPACT Marketing Suite which is an easy way for businesses to build an automated website that syncs listings, social media and enables them to easily tap into your audience to take advantage of even more advertising options).

If you've been following along that all equates to around $75,000+ per year in digital revenue! How does that sound to you?