The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot in December went live with an online ad portal directed at service industries and other small companies that might typically advertise in phone directories.

The portal, www.pilotezads.com, is based on software from Wave2 Media Solutions, said James Allen, The Virginian-Pilot’s business system analyst.

The portal provides a template companies can use to build 4-, 6- or 8-inch black-and-white ads for publication in any of the daily’s tab or broadsheet editions.

The Virginian-Pilot launched PilotEZAds in December. The portal allows advertisers to build their own 4-, 6-, or 8-inch ads for print publication.
 

“Through this portal, we’ve given these advertisers a leg up,” Allen said. “Within 20 minutes of being on the site they can have an ad marketing themselves.”

Advertisers can also choose the publication and print run, Allen said. Everything is done through the portal.

“We’ve got pre-designed ad templates they can customize with text, pictures and logos,” Allen said. “It’s point of purchase. They purchase their ad space using a credit card and it’s all self serve.”

The templates are designed by newspaper staff and Wave2, through its iPublish: AdPortal app, and they provide the architecture and interface that allows customers to make textual and graphical changes as needed.

Positive feedback

Pilot EzAds was well received by beta testers, who said the site was very easy to use, according to Allen.

As for live users, Allen said that’s been a bit tough to gauge due to the timing of the go-live.

“We launched this at the end of the fourth quarter when a lot of folks were gearing up for the holidays, so I think by not launching in the middle of December, for example, we missed some of the fourth quarter opportunities,” he said. “We’ve had some usage from people who have kind of stumbled across the site.”

The newspaper did a small promotion of PilotEzAds, including telesales, which was followed up in January with a larger print promotion.

The Pilot publishes a mix of products, ranging from tabs to the flagship broadsheet. Three of the tabs have Thursday and Friday publication dates and all of them are produced on Sundays.

Pricing is the same no matter which day of the week advertisers choose to place their ad.

“It’s flat-rate pricing — Sunday is the same as Monday or Tuesday,” Allen said.

Allen said the portal is competitively priced compared to advertising in phone directories. Rates are available on the site.

“They can have a weekly presence in any of our tab or broadsheet products for about 75 percent per month of what it would cost them to run in the Yellow Pages.”

The benefits for the newspaper itself haven’t gone unnoticed either. The paper, for example, no longer has to send sales people to target the approximately 35,000 small businesses in the Hampton Roads area.

 “This has created a sales channel to reach them and it’s a sales portal that is really affordable for both us and the advertiser,” Allen said.