Our digital offering will continue to grow in 2023 on the back of progress over the last 12 months.
New sales propositions are planned for advertisers to access our portfolio’s growing of local audiences, backed with services that enable local businesses to make more of their digital presence.
Neil Webster, Commercial Digital Officer for Tindle Newspapers Limited, reflects on the highlights of 2022: As we look back on 2022 it is pleasing to see the progress on improving the digital commercial offerings which has been made across the company.
The work by colleagues throughout the business to enhance the Tindle digital proposition has generated some very positive results.
With compelling digital content which reaches more people than ever before, our sales teams, who work in beautiful market towns and villages as well as the Isle of Man, are working to share with advertisers the growing number of online opportunities, all based around our ethos of being at the heart of all things local.
Rolling out new website designs to every Tindle brand across the UK in the spring was instrumental in the drive to grow digital engagement.
Modern designs
All 37 Tindle news brands received new designs backed with updated content workflows to deliver the latest content, as part of a development programme carried out by the in-house digital team over several months.
Recent acquisitions by Tindle, the Woking News & Mail in Surrey and Voice Newspapers in Cornwall, are to be given new websites to complement their print products.
The sites were all developed in partnership with an experienced web development company, who work for numerous media companies.
With the designs set up to work well across mobile, tablet and desktop, audiences are growing steadily.
In conjunction with the local sales teams based in each of Tindle market, packages were launched to give local advertisers access to digital audiences, raising profile and promoting their offerings.
Our sales opportunities include Homepage Takeovers, which give advertisers the chance to take over every ad slot on the main website page, sponsored content through native advertising, multiformat packages and Ad Messenger mobile advertising.
Since May, the local teams have delivered some amazing results with more than 350 Homepage Takeovers sold. The team are confident that more than 1,000 local bookings will be made by the end of the year.
All campaigns are managed by supporting staff and optimised to get the best results.
The full campaign results are available at the end of each booking, with repeat bookings on the up. Recent customers to come on board include the Torch Theatre in Tenby promoting their performances and pantomime, South Hams District Council showcasing job vacancies and Wellington School encouraging visits to their school open days.
Growing portfolio
Dan Williams, Commercial Manager for our Isle of Man operation, summed up the successes. He said: “The biggest improvement we have made to the website is enabling formats such as Homepage Takeovers on the Home, News and Sports pages.
“This is something that clients really see the benefit of and are prepared to pay a premium for. It enables great brand awareness and supports their marketing campaigns.”
In addition to local efforts, close liaison with Tindle’s national sales partner Mediaforce/1XL is ongoing to introduce new propositions and allow national agencies and advertisers to access digital audiences for advertisers including Tesco and Ford.
The team has also relaunched the company’s job board newjobtoday.co.uk and audiences and revenues are increasing substantially through self-serve and direct local sales.
Looking forward to 2023, the plan is to further develop sales propositions that help advertisers access Tindle’s growing portfolio of local audiences including newsletters and section sponsorship in areas such as property.
Additionally, we will be developing services that will enable local businesses to make more of their digital presence with products such as local social media management and SEO, as well as areas such as self-serve digital advertising.
The aim for the next year is to consolidate on and build on the progress to date, as we increase our digital focus to help the businesses and audiences that we serve.