1. VOICES HEARD MEDIA
How Newspapers can make money
in the Digital Age

2. • Advertising Challenges
• Advertising Solutions
• Embedding ads within content
• Participation-based Ads
• Branded Experiences
• Packaging an Event
• Social Media Extensions
• Added Value Services

3. Challenging Times
Newspapers are experiencing a number of challenges as
consumers take their readership from the traditional format to digital
• Pay Wall– Newspapers have to decide how to make revenue
from online readership. Some have introduced paid
subscriptions, but this decreases reach.
• Decreased Circulation– Younger generations are shying away
from traditional subscriptions in favor of online news
consumption.
• Depressed CPM’s – Digital advertising surpassed print
advertising in the U.S. last year and is projected to continue its
growth at 15% a year. However, five companies own 60% of the
digital advertising revenue, leaving a smaller pool of advertisers
for newspapers.
• Social Media – Sources can bypass news outlets and self-
publish while targeting the same readers through social media.
• Mobile – Mobile viewing presents an entirely new problem
because the smaller screen makes it harder for content and
advertisements to coexist.
• Expectations – Advertisers and brands hold Internet
advertisements to higher standards than other forms of media.
Click-thru’s and conversions are the focus, not simply eyeballs.

4. What NOT to Focus On
To thrive in the current market, we must focus on the challenges
that we can lead in and affectively improve the marketplace.
To do this we must first know what not to focus on:
• The percentage of the market is dominated by a few companies
• Advertisers’ expectations and metrics on banner ads are solidly
established and not readily to change in the near term
What to Focus On
The four challenges that offer the most opportunity and have a need
for leadership are in the areas of:
1) Social media
2) Depressed CPM’s
3) Reaching younger generations
4) Mobile advertising

5. Creating A New Experience
Social media and social media applications can be leveraged to
create new experiences and extensions for existing newspaper
content.
This creates interactive and engaging reader experiences that fully
embed your advertisers, without detracting from the reader’s
experience or impairing editorial standards.
Resolves Issues
Done correctly, this helps solve the issues around banner
blindness, and where to have ads placed within mobile newspapers
sites or apps.
Another benefit is that sponsoring content is different from other
offerings in the market place, empowering a sales team with the
ability to sell packages independent of traditional CPM’s.
Maximizing the Opportunity
By connecting your advertisers into your content, we can also begin
to shift the focus away from click thru’s to other metrics, such as
- engagement
- social media extensions
- added-value services.

6. In the following slides we will cover ways in which publishers
have successfully integrated sponsors into social media to
create new value-added experiences.
Examples Covered
• Embedding Ads within Content
• Participation-Based Ads
• Branding Content
• Packaging an Event
• Adding in Social Media Extensions
• Other Added-Value Services

7. Embedding Ads Within the Content
The easiest way to get started is to sell traditional digital
ads (banners, block, and pre-roll ads) within social
media experiences. Advertisers are still receiving
increased value because their ads are now mixed within
the content portions of your newspaper’s website.
Ex. 1
Biggest Key: Readers will accept ads as long as they
are receiving value and are not berated.
Best Practices:
• Ex. 1 - Ads that overlap content should still allow
content to be seen and should allow the reader to
easily dismiss or skip over the ads
• Ex. 2 – Embedded ad ratio should be somewhere
around 4:1 (display four pieces of content for every
one ad)
Ex. 2

8. Ads Displayed Based on a Readers Participation
Research conducted around SMS advertising showed that Ex. 1
when users initiated an action and received information of
value back with an ad, they were 30% more likely to view
the ad favorably.
Psychologically, your readers are more apt to accept and
even click-thru on an ad when they have been given the
opportunity to participate or receive something of value for
free.
Examples:
Ex. 1 – After readers ask a question they must watch a pre-
roll video before seeing the answer.
Ex. 2 – Between questions 7 and 8 of a trivia game the
reader sees an advertisement.
Ex. 2
Our experience has shown this to be true. Ads displayed after
someone has taken action have a lower number of total impressions
but a higher click-thru rate.

9. What the Advertiser Wants?
Your advertisers want their brand first and
foremost to be seen. Due to the research
around banner blindness, advertisers know
the best place to be is where the content is
being displayed.
Even more valuable is to be where the
readers are actively engaging with your
content.
Branding the Experience
Basic integration can be executed by simply
adding a brand’s logo as a watermark. More
fully integrated experiences can include
advertiser colors, logos, and even their name
or slogan as the call-to-action.
Ex. “Unleash the Beast with the Monster
Tweet of the Day”
Don’t Forget!
These same experiences should be
leveraged to cross-promote other properties
and events.

10. Use print and advertising to reinforce your online
event or digital message.
News Sentinel example
The Knox News Sentinel ran an article about local
athlete Inky Johnson following his book release.
This included a call-to-action sending readers to
ask him questions directly via their website,
knoxnews.com. The top questions asked then
informed the interview with Johnson, which was
subsequently recorded.
TIMELINE – Print to digital
Sunday - article ran in print and online
discussing Inky’s new book and inviting readers to
ask him questions via knoxnews.com
Monday thru Thurs – Readers asked Inky
questions through VHM Q&A on website
Thurs – Online Q&A event closed for questions
Friday – Answers from Inky to top questions
posted to Q&A app online and article posted

11. Statistics
- Inky Johnson answered 13 out of 26 questions
readers asked
- Knox News Sentinel received more than
13,000 unique visitors
- 17,700 page views
This type of event is highly sellable to advertisers
as it can be packaged as an online purchase with
in-paper advertising.
This event also generated the content for 2
articles!

12. Social Landing Pages
Advertisers are always looking to buy fully
branded destination pages. These pages can
exist on your website and/or on your social
network pages, i.e. Facebook Tabs.
Best Practices
The best way to execute this kind of campaign is
for the publisher to create a Facebook Tab as
well as a destination page on their website.
Here, the Facebook Tab banners link to the
destination page on the publisher’s website, and
the banner ads on the web page point to the
sponsor’s website.
Note:
In order to conform to Facebook’s advertising
standards, all banner ads on the tab must link back to a
page on the publisher’s website.

13. Email Newsletter Sign Ups
Businesses big and small all look to increase
their email databases to better re-market
and target consumers.
The key is how to get users to willingly sign
up for their newsletters.
Solution
For sponsors looking to capture email
addresses, simply offer them the opportunity
to sponsor your next contest or
sweepstakes. In exchange, not only will the
sponsor be branded into the event but any
users participating in the contest or
sweepstakes will be asked to sign up for the
sponsors newsletter.
This is perfectly fine as long as signup is not
a requirement to be entered into the
event, and as long as the user has the ability
to opt out of the newsletter registration.

14. Mobile Content and Couponing
Other ways to increase value to advertisers is by
looking at campaigns that are more focused in and
around the mobile experience.
These experiences typically consist of the reader
consuming content outside the confines of their home
- whether it is a live event, restaurant, or being
distributed through an out-of-home media outlet (i.e.
digital signage, in-store broadcast).
The most difficult part is getting readers to the correct
web address. The key here is to give the reader a
simple and easy way to find the content on their
mobile phone. The simplest ways today are by
providing a short URL, SMS text message, and/or a
QR code. None of these methods are ideal but they
are doable. (Good news - other forms of technology
are being tested now to make this much easier and a
more fluid experience).
After the reader interacts with your content, you then
have the opportunity to thank them by responding with
a coupon. Based on the reader’s location, this coupon
could be used to make an immediate purchase and
provide the advertiser with conversion metrics.