What’s black and white and red all over? Hopefully not your online site’s balance sheet. If it is, it’s time to implement one or more of the ideas in our Rev Up The Revenue section!
This month the focus is on online coupon programs. A number of our publishers have set up programs that take full advantage of the convenience of online coupons to readers, publishers and advertisers. Are you one of them?
Whether a paper has a regular coupon section, a separate coupon publication or no coupon program at all, the online coupons can be either a value-added element or a stand-alone program that can add money to your bottom line.
How does that look in practice? Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Example 1:
A suburban weekly paper currently has a small in-house coupon booklet that they insert once a month. This publication generally has about 25-30 advertisers. The sales reps began selling a new coupon package that included the printed coupon and an online coupon that would remain on their site for the full month. They charged an additional $25 per month for the online coupon, and emphasized their growing online reader traffic. Their advertisers reponded!
They have added an additional $750 per month in ad revenue or $9000 a year having signed one-year contracts. Have they incurred any additional costs? No additional costs for their site... No additional costs for graphics or set up as they use the same ad online as in print... No additional sales effort or calls as it was packaged with an existing product. Not bad.
Example 2:
A rural twice-weekly newspaper has no existing coupon program. The ad reps upsold current print display advertisers a week-long online coupon to compliment their display ad for a small additional charge ($8 per week). The coupons were a perfect way for the advertiser to offer special deals in conjunction with their regular ads. This is an ongoing program that will continue to net $$ throughout the year and will provide verifiable results when online readers walk through the advertisers’ doors with coupons from the paper’s site.
Coupons are easy to set up and easy to upload to the site. Many newspapers use a template for all their coupons so that they carry the newspaper’s recognizable “brand.” Others set each coupon with a unique layout depending on the advertiser.
For a quick refresher on how to upload coupons, call the support desk at our office, or check out the Online Help Reference Guide found on your MyWebPal admin page under HELP, Coupon Section.
For a few examples of Coupons on this site, click on Special Offers on the navigation bar, and you’ll see what you could be providing to your advertisers and readers.
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