In the name of both PR and branding, every print publisher with any Web know-how stamps its URL throughout its newspaper, magazine or newsletter.
But how many run demographically targeted spots on seven local radio stations, mail fleece blankets to potential advertisers and pay a plane to fly a banner with its domain name above a major sporting event - all in the interest of getting someone to sit up and take notice?
Communications executives at Boston Globe Electronic Publishing's Boston.com counted on this style of integrated communications to build a following for its online community: Careers.boston.com site (which launched in October 1997).
Boston.com's three-person marketing team, two free-lance creative contributors and media buyer Blitz Media are perpetually trying to answer this question: "What can we do that will shake the city up?" DeSisto says.
The Careers.boston.com promotions shook up its target audience of online users ages 25 to 49 (same as the main site) and the judges of Editor & Publisher's (E&P) Best Online Newspaper Awards presented the site with its Best Promotion of a Newspaper Online Service prize last month.
"They seemed to have pulled out all of the stops" for the campaign, says Len Muscarella, managing director of Interactive Media Associates Inc., the consulting firm that administered the contest for E&P.
Also, one of the judges said Boston.com used a "very strong, imaginative" campaign with smartly targeted ads in the city's main alternative newspaper and top radio stations.
The Lowdown on the Shake-Up
DeSisto and her team developed cross-media campaigns in the past, and they wanted to continue this strategy while brainstorming ideas for Careers. boston.com last Fall.
|
On the PR Hunt: Look for Local Promotional Opportunities Any savvy PR person knows that partnerships and community-based alliances are worth their weight in gold. Boston.com Director of Marketing Lisa DeSisto says online publishers without a Boston.com-sized marketing budget should work with prominent organizations in their community. Throughout 1997, the site teamed with a local CBS affiliate on a segment titled "On the Web." A staffer from Boston.com appeared on-air twice a week and discussed ways to search the Web for anything from a Halloween costume to home remodeling tips. At the end of the segment, the staff member pointed viewers to the site and provided a keyword to type into the home page's search feature. And it's those one-of-kind tactics that often yield lasting PR impressions for companies that have long relied on the big bang of sending out a barrage of press kits - some loaded with promotional trinkets - and then keeping their fingers crossed. "We've never done a mouse pad and I don't think we ever will," says DeSisto. |
To reach consumers, the site placed ads in the Boston Globe and bought page insertions in the alternative newspaper the Boston Phoenix.
The site leveraged its promotional and content-sharing relationship with Boston Magazine with a full-page ad aimed at the publication's upscale readership. The ad copy read "Careers.boston.com - Elevating tax brackets since 1997."
Boston.com's media buyers developed three spots that focused on a "dream job" scenario for radio stations with programming schedules ranging from all-news to adult contemporary to alternative. Online banners appeared on Boston.com, the radio stations' sites and the Boston Globe channel on the PointCast Network.
In what DeSisto calls a "guerrilla marketing" tactic, the site spent about $800 for one day's worth of aerial advertising at The Head of the Charles Regatta, one of the world's largest rowing events and a major Boston happening.
Blanketing the Competition
In its most clever idea, the site mailed a fleece blanket with an embroidered Careers.boston.com logo to 400 recruitment agencies and human resource managers.
The package also included a packet of hot cocoa to reinforce the message that these firms should "warm up" to online advertising.
Careers.boston.com followed up by outsourcing a firm that called everyone who received a blanket and attempted to set up appointments with the site's sales team. Yocum says the site generated a signficant number of sales because of this marketing and call-back effort.
The Kudos Come in Numbers
Searches on the careers site, which is marketed as a sub-brand of Boston.com, went from 300,000 in October to 450,000 in February, according to DeSisto.
Careers.boston.com isn't the richest career site created by an online newspaper - washingtonpost.com and the San Jose Mercury News' Mercury Center offer more resources - but job hunters aren't the only ones who stand to benefit from the free, searchable database of 12,000 positions.
So do companies: The site includes information about 401K plans and links to career fairs (courtesy of careerfairs.com) and the national job site Careerpath.com (of which the Globe is a cofounder). The bulk of the ads are repurposed from the print paper at no extra cost to advertisers.
(Boston.com, Lisa DeSisto, 617/929-7900; Keith Yocum, 617/929-2405; IMA, Len Muscarella, 973/539-5255;)