A Florida newspaper has increased readership 20 percent without spending a dime on printing or distribution. How? By offering the entire paper online for free.
Publisher Craig Swill wanted to get more people reading the Boca Raton (Fla.) News — and its ads — yet avoid any increase in the printing and distribution costs which already squeeze newspapers. He found a solution in the PDF sent by the News to its printer every day.
“If we’re already doing this for our printer, why can’t we do this for everybody?” said Swill. “The online edition gets more people to read the newspaper and use our advertisers’ ads.”
The online edition was first launched in March as a free PDF download on the paper’s Web site. Now Swill has brought it one step closer to his readers with a daily “E-mail Blast” that links subscribers to the day’s edition.
In three months the online edition has received over 4,600 subscribers, mostly new readers of the 16,000-circulation (22,000 Sunday) daily. Print sales have largely been unaffected. “We’ve seen very little cannibalization of our paid circulation,” said Swill. “For the most part, it’s a different reader.”
The edition takes full advantage of the interactive capabilities of today’s PDFs. Readers can click on refers to find inside stories or follow jumps, while clicking on hotlinked ads, marked by red borders, brings them directly to an advertiser’s Web site.
Swill said the paper is not charging advertisers on a click-thru basis — yet — but instead is using the free links as added value to drive sales of print ads. Thus the links still bring in revenue even as the paper works to build market share and usage of the online edition.
Advertisers have embraced the idea. The PDF allows advertisers to see their placement in the paper compared to other advertisers, and saves the newspaper the trouble of tearsheets.
Readers have welcomed its usefulness. Older readers can increase the font size to make type more legible. Stories can be e-mailed to friends. And the online edition is easier to read on the sly at work, said Swill.
The online edition is also useful to the newspaper. E-mail delivery allows the News to turn its normal afternoon print product into a morning product, and keeps the paper in touch with “snowbird” readers during the off-season.
The PDF edition is currently offered for free while the paper builds market share. “Monetizing it can come later,” said Swill. “And it doesn’t really cost us much to do it.”
Distributing the edition as a simple PDF allows him to avoid the vendor costs of creating a more feature-rich digital edition. He plans to sell sponsorships of the daily e-mail blast, and hopes to discover a way to offer Sunday pre-prints online as well.
Statistics reveal that 45 percent of his online subscribers are “power readers” who read the Web edition daily. Swill believes the online circulation will one day surpass the print circulation.
Kim Lewicki, editor, publisher and co-owner of The Highlands’ (N.C.) Newspaper, also uses a PDF edition to boost her newspaper’s reach. “It’s an inexpensive, fast way to reach more people and keep up with the technological times,” she said.
For over three years now, Lewicki has posted a PDF of the free-distribution Highlands’ Newspaper to the Web site, www.highlandsinfo.com. Traffic has grown each year and now averages more than 1,000 visitors a day, she said. Added to the 5,000 copies she distributes in Highlands, this total extends the newspaper’s reach substantially. Anecdotal evidence shows that the audiences are different, she said.
The other advantage for PDF editions is in circulation. They qualify as “replica editions” under Audit Bureau of Circulations rules as long as they maintain the same basic identity and content as the core newspaper, and include all authorized ROP advertising.
Editions can count as paid circulation as long as they are delivered to customers who pay at least 25 percent of the regular subscription price. Even without paid circulation, these editions can provide newspapers with effective archives and electronic tearsheets.
