Publishers Use Special Sections to Drive More Revenue
The content was written in-house by four of the Daily News' staff writers. Layout was completed in-house, but the Daily News did use an outside service to create the section's various maps. Artwork came from Harley-Davidson's 100th and the Harley Owners Group's 20th anniversary celebration.
Advertisers were mostly restaurants and bars, but there were some tourist-type ads, such as boat tours and other attractions of interest to visitors. Local Harley-Davidson dealers also placed ads in the guide.
Parent company Conley Media encouraged sister newspapers the Waukesha Freeman and Ozaukee County News Graphic to sell ads for the special section. There were 12 or 13 reps selling ads for the section and the number of pages in the Riders' Guide was determined by the amount of advertising sold. Evans noted, "It was a welcome new advertising venue for advertisers."
Six Verticals for The Wall Street Journal
As these newspapers illustrate, when publishers print special sections about specific fields of business, the features can be very attractive for advertisers who jump at the chance to reach a narrow audience segments interested in these topics. The challenge for publishers is how to replicate that high value online. In February of 2013, The Wall Street Journal launched six new digital verticals to match the special sections that appear in the Journal's print edition about 60 times a year: wealth management, retirement, energy, leadership, healthcare and small business.
According to Senior Editor Larry Rout, the idea is to ensure this content doesn't sink as quickly when it goes online. To keep up the chatter around the special topics, the Journal asked a stable of thought leaders and public personalities to blog and offer opinions in a live stream. The site also hosting periodic "Google Hangouts" where business experts chatted and took questions from viewers.
