This may be something only parents can appreciate, but not only is it quite easy to lose a child’s car seat, they can be difficult and expensive to replace.
“I didn’t want to buy a new one,” Michelle Digulla recalled during a recent coffee meeting in downtown Toronto. Rather than scour eBay or other online sources that might have carried such products from sellers all over the world, however, she turned to Tradyo, an app from Metroland Media that takes the traditional experience of looking at your community newspaper’s classifieds to a mobile device.
Of course, you might expect that Digulla, who was appointed Metroland Media’s first vice-president of marketing about a year ago, would naturally be her own company’s customer. She mentions the story, though, to show how the traditional value of community newspapers is changing — not only to readers but to advertisers as well.
“For us, it’s a matter of getting the story out that we are embracing digital and data but also staying true to our roots,” Digulla said. “We connect people to news and information, but we also have the power to mobilize a community — more than banks, more than churches.”
Digulla’s first big step in telling that story has been using original research to showcase the company’s reach and impact. The initial portion of a study with Brandspark International was released in February, showing three quarters of Ontarians have read at least one of the past four issues of their community paper. A few weeks ago, Metroland released the next wave of survey results, which showed local community newspapers were considered the most trusted source of advertising among respondents (88%) ahead of all other channels, including radio (83%), TV (75%), the internet (56%) and social media (40%).
Those numbers don’t mean Digulla and her team are trying to convince brands to focus solely on community papers. It’s more about reinforcing the idea that CMOs should balance their investments across a portfolio of available consumer touchpoints.
“I think the pendulum is swinging back to multichannel marketing,” she said, citing TV as another example of a medium on the rebound. “What ultimately determines those investments is what drives results.”
For instance, the Brandspark study showed 77% of the community newspaper readers surveyed agreed that the content of those papers drove them to take action either visiting a store, buying something, telling someone about a “great deal or product” or going to a website to learn more.
Digulla said her other main objective is to ensure organizations like Metroland have relevance among large enterprise brands. As marketing moves increasingly contextual and personalized, having a way to get access to local audiences will be more critical than ever, she reasons.
“That said, we’ll always be strong among small and medium-sized business,” she added. “Bringing them to consumers is what helps refuel the economy. We think we can not only inform communities, but help communities grow.”
