Winning formula for a successful Holiday Gift Guide puts local advertisers and events in the spotlight.
CREATE:
Last holiday season, My Horry News customized and expanded on a Themed Special Section from Metro to produce a successful 71-page Holiday Gift Guide packed with festive features and local touches. In addition to Metro editorial features, the section included upcoming concerts and community events, a variety of engaging contests and plenty of local advertising. Contest promotions ran in the print and digital section, as well as on social media, driving traffic to the publication’s website for online entry.
SELL:
Advertising Director Shari Harms says the publication packages its printed Holiday Gift Guide with holiday contests, digital products and social media promotions each year to get people excited about the holiday season. The sales team uses the previous year’s gift guide as a selling tool for new and returning advertisers, and publishing the section the week before Thanksgiving gives them another selling point: Harms says clients appreciate that their advertising is not lost among inserts from the big box stores that come out the week of Thanksgiving! My Horry News starts promoting and selling the section about two months before publishing. In addition to running the section as an insert and online, the publication delivers at least 10 copies of the Holiday Gift Guide to every advertiser for distribution at their business.
PROFIT: Last year’s Holiday Gift Guide featured over 100 advertisers, plus contest and event sponsors. Harms says that readers and advertisers alike look forward to receiving the guide each year, and it typically produces over $80,000 for the publication, including the print, digital and contest components. Harms adds, “Metro content is a great help for our small publication. We don’t have a budget for content curators, so your templates and content help keep our Holiday Gift Guide fresh and up to date.”
Find and read additional success stories for ideas to try in your market by visiting the Planning tab on our website: https://mcg.metrocreativeconnection.com/publish/newmcc/index-pilot.php#.
To find out how you can access Metro’s Holiday Advertising Service, and the four bonus holiday sections, click here: https://mcg.metrocreativeconnection.com/publish/newmcc/category.php?Holiday-Advertising-Service&category=5#
For a complete schedule of timely Themed Special Sections that can run in print and online (as sections or individual pages), each of which comes with a rate card and promotional ads, click here: https://mcg.metrocreativeconnection.com/publish/newmcc/category.php?Themed-Special-Sections-TSS-Program-226
Another added bonus for all of our news media partners are the educational webinars that Metro hosts — free of charge for attendees. Here is a link to our webinars page where you can see what we have coming up, as well as our complete webinar archive including our most recent webinar focusing on "Templates to Target Local Business Advertising": https://mcg.metrocreativeconnection.com/publish/newmcc/category.php?Live-Training-Webinars&category=131
Follow us so you don’t miss out on all of the ideas, content and resources we share to help you create, sell and profit:
https://www.facebook.com/MetroCreativeConnection
https://www.linkedin.com/company/metro-creative-graphics/
https://www.youtube.com/user/MetroCreativeVideos/videos
