Newspapers have to exploit the “sweet point” between the print and online worlds if they are to successfully woo future advertisers and readers.

So said Paul Camp, chief executive officer of Content That Works, a Chicago-based firm that delivers both print and Internet-based special sections and targeted content to more than 300 clients. 

Content That Works offers a weekly print 
and online real-estate publication that gives 
newspapers space to insert their own 
locally sourced content and advertising.
Graphic: Content That Works

To many newspaper publishers, the convergence of print and online media is not some lofty far-flung goal. Instead, merging the two is something that has to happen ASAP to ensure survival.

Want proof? Look no further than the latest U.S. newspaper circulation statistics from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Print circulation continues its achingly slow and steady erosion in the country’s largest markets (daily circulation of the nation’s 841 newspapers fell 0.9 percent, to 47,711,751. Sunday circulation dropped 1.5 percent, to 51,625,241, for the 662 Sunday newspapers reporting). That decline is doubly vexing when a steadily growing population should be leading to a corresponding steady growth in circulation.  

Newspapers are at a bit of an awkward crossroads. Despite the drop in print readership, online readership is on the rise. Print ad rates, meantime, continue to be based on circulation and readership built upon historical trends, while online ad rates are all over the map, based on very short data sets comprised of visits and geographic reach.

Due to the sharply varying nature of these two different revenue streams, many newspapers are faced with the challenge of creating some type of integration between the two.

“While it’s true that circulation has been declining for a long time, I think the Internet represents a huge opportunity for newspapers for a variety of reasons,” Camp said.

One hopeful trend: the advent of youth-oriented editions such as RedEye and Red Streak, published by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, respectively.

Both tabloid publications also have high-profile companion Web sites, which increase the print-online integration of the products.

Sweet point

“That’s where we see the sweet point,” Camp said. “Newspapers have what other Internet competitors don’t: a built-in promotional medium through their papers themselves.”

Exploiting the cross-promotion and cross-selling opportunities is a huge plus for newspapers, Camp said.

 “There is no other medium that reaches local people with the force that the newspaper does,” he said.

Still, Camp said newspapers need to make their Web sites “thicker,” that is, provide coverage of multiple special-interest categories that may get short-changed in their print editions. This means building on the reliable brand the paper has established while at the same time doing things online that cannot be duplicated elsewhere.

As far as advertising goes, Camp said that although many newspaper Web sites cannot draw the kind of ad dollars that their ROP counterparts do in print, there’s opportunity in bringing in smaller, non-traditional advertisers that may never have been able to afford a steady contractual diet of print work.

“This is a way of getting an advertiser into a specialized area of the Web site, which may not get as much traffic as the home page does,” he said. “But it still gets traffic and it gives that newspaper an opportunity to refresh its relationship on a regular basis with that advertiser that they really wouldn’t get otherwise.”

Packaging key for advertising

Camp said the nascent online advertising industry is now developing some best practices that are helping newspapers and marketers exploit special online packages such as those sold by Content That Works and rival firms.

“When papers went out and put their classifieds online and started charging for it, they didn’t say, ‘Your classified is going online and here’s how much that costs,’” Camp said. “They didn’t want people to reject that. We think it’s important to acknowledge that there is a value to the Internet, and not to be too cheap in that regard. I don’t think we have to go out and sell it for pennies anymore.”

In addition to improving how online ads are packaged, newspapers are seeing success by changing how they price online ads.

Camp said newspapers should price ads on a weekly basis to remind marketers the value of 24/7 Web access to their message.

Moreover, he said publishers should price and position online ads relative to print counterparts. If a marketer buys a full-page print ad, its equivalent online ad should enjoy prime placement on the newspaper’s Web site, Camp said. Conversely, those buying smaller ROP ads should get corresponding online treatment.

Some newspapers are seeing success using a variety of PDF-to-Web conversion tools from various vendors, which put the print ad online when the user clicks on a banner or button. According to Camp, newspapers have been helping their advertisers craft messages for a long time - more than 100 years in many cases - and that advantage can help create advertising on the Web that continues to get “feet in the door.”