Initiatives to generate revenues short term in offline newspapers (leveraging online capabilities)

In a fresh report from Newspaper Association of America there are a couple of original revenue generation initiatives for newspaper that seems to make sense at least for the shor term:

- St. Petersburg Times is handling 16 to 20 consumers’ shows a year with a great profit margin (45 to 65%). They are trying to lead the market in counsmer events. This is an extra activity of their promotions team. For each show, they have made a dedicated website.

It is a complementary market that can make more complete our service to both, advertisers an audience. Having events is increasingly important as offline newspapers disappear, because through this event is where our audience and advertisers will continue in physical touch with our brand. Community events with audience are a great way to continue building up a newspaper brand.

- Morristown is developing a hyperlocal strategy by launching weekly paper targeting hyperlocal communities. Advertisers want to be seen as par as the community.  They call it the “print version of facebook”. The model is simple: (only good news) of user generated content (40% of the content) and pictures, with hyperlocal ads. People want to see themselves in the paper and their neighbours, the same curiosity that drives social networks may push this kind of content that is entertainment. They may also cover hyperlocal sports events from schools with user generated content.

Similar to the case before, Morristown demonstrates how a printed paper can leverage on an online community to build up brand, entertainment contents, and a further user generated content flow.

Concept of bringing online contents to print is being used in other initiatives and it makes sense as a short term tactic.

These kind of initiatives may not transform a business model, but are a proof of dynamism and reflect a proactive approach to making more things in offline newspapers.

Full report is here.