Bad Axe (MI) sees 75% new business with bundled tourism program
The Challenge
Bad Axe, Michigan--located in "the thumb" of the state, is host to a high number of tourists each summer. As with most newspapers that face a busy tourist season, the newspaper had created an annual Visitor's Guide in addition to a weekly freestanding tab --both geared towards visitors to the area. The staff of the Huron Daily Tribune soon discovered that most advertisers were choosing to participate in one publication or the other--very few chose to advertise in the annual as well as the weekly product. After meeting with The Blinder Group, the staff of the Huron Daily Tribune created a bundled Tourist package. This package included the annual visitor's guide (Traveler), changing the weekly publication (Resorter) to a 6-time a year tab section----publishing once in May and June and twice in July and August, a weekly Tourism Directory and an exciting new Web site.
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Program Overview
The Traveler was an annual glossy-covered book that contained features and information pertinent to folks visiting the Huron area. The Resorter was produced 6-times during the tourist season and appealed to both local and transient residents. Content for this publication included more timely entertainment features and a calendar of events. Both publications were distributed as freestanding products in high-traffic areas throughout the community.
The newspaper created a Web site for tourism/visitor information. This site had the same content found in the annual and monthly publications as well as an online Tourism Directory. The directory was linked from every page of the Web site and contained the listings for all advertisers that were featured in the print publications. The site was "live" for the entire tourist season--May, June, July and August.
In addition, the newspaper created a Sunday Tourism Directory that was located in the very popular Living Section of the Sunday product. This section was also distributed to non-subscribers giving advertisers additional reach with their print ad.
Sales Strategy
All advertising was sold as a bundled print/online package that included a print ad in the publications as well as a directory listing online. Each directory listing was linked to an online version of the advertiser's print ad. As the ad changed in the print publication, their ad also changed online. Premium advertisers also received rotating banner ads as well.
The Blinder Group created a one-page sales sheet that clearly outlined the benefits of the tourism package and showed advertisers how their advertising would work in print and online. TBG also returned to the Bad Axe area to help the sales team close business.
Results
This bundled program generated more than $18,000 in just 2-days of selling! Seventy-five percent of this revenue came from new business and the average rate was 25% over the previous year. In addition, the staff of the Huron Daily Tribune generated an additional $21k after The Blinder Group left the market. By combining the existing products into one package, the sales team was able to decrease sales time while increasing revenue.
"The Blinder Group helped us plan and implement a program that not only increased our revenue, but decreased our sales time. Through this program, our sales team is now able to offer multimedia sales ideas to all of our advertisers, " said Jenny Anderson, publisher of The Huron Daily Tribune.
Contact Information
The Huron Daily Tribune is a 7,845 daily newspaper located in Bad Axe, Michigan.
For more information about the sales strategy of this program, contact:
Jenny Anderson, Publisher
989.269.6461, ext. 101
janderson@hearstnp.com
989.269.6461, ext. 119
vyaroch@hearstnp.com For technical information, contact:
Aileen Shedd, Digital Media Director
989.269.6461, ext. 131
ashedd@hearstnp.com
Lead Consultant for The Blinder Group:
Mike Blinder
(917) 865-4827
mike@blindergroup.com
The Blinder Group
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