A shameless plug!

It has become amazingly clear in the last couple of years that our customers no longer rely on our printed newspaper to get their information. In fact, our on-line editions have grown to the point that the unique visitors to our websites are running about 4 times our print edition subscribers.
This last spring we changed providers for our digital edition to make sure that all of our websites were “platform responsive.” That means the sites automatically adjust the presentation to fit the digital device screen you are using to view us. Today over half of our unique visitors are accessing us through their smart phone.
We have also been working on ways that local businesses can use the combination of our print and digital editions to promote their businesses through our Shop Local initiatives. Shopping local is the best way to support our local economy. It is an economic fact that locally owned businesses keep more of their money in the community. They support our schools and non-profit organizations and provide jobs to most of our local people.
This week we are announcing the launch of our new on-line classified advertising service. Historically, classified advertising has provided the bulk of the revenue to newspapers. Classified ads are those small, generally text only, ads in the back of your newspaper. Over the years competition from the Internet, and free distribution shopper products has eroded much of that revenue in traditional newspapers.
As we examined the ways our digital customers were using our websites one thing stood out – the highest consistently visited pages on our digital editions were the classified pages. That prompted us to begin looking at how we could improve the classified advertising services we offer to our customers.
The result is that this week we are launching our digital classified edition. NCWMarket.com is our new on-line classified advertising service. It has powerful new features that can help individuals and local businesses sell their goods and services. Features we could never offer through our print edition alone. Here are some of the important features:
1. It protects your privacy – yes, you have to register but registration is free and we will not sell your information to anyone. We consider it a trade secret. While you have to give us your email address we will not publish it and will only use it to communicate with you. To further strengthen your privacy, you do not have to include a phone number or email address in any ad we publish for you on the Internet. A “Contact Advertiser” button built into every on-line listing will send you a discreet message from anyone interested in purchasing your item. Of course you can choose to include a telephone number or other contact information in the body of your listing but it is not required.
2. Secure access – The site is protected by the highest security available on the Internet allowing you to confidently pay for your ad with a credit card when you place it.
3. Category Pricing – We can set pricing for individual categories so some categories may be free and some categories like “bargain basement” may be very inexpensive. Other categories may be more expensive depending on the number of photos you would like to include in your listing. As an introduction to the new service all ads placed in the next 30 days will be free.
4. 24/7 access – you can sign on at any time to write your own ad, choose the category where you want it to appear and attach photos. As soon as we approve your ad it will be posted to the site.
5. Pricing is not dependent on length – Your ad can be long or short. Just remember most people will not read long, wordy ads. Photos and art work are often more powerful. Remember the old saying, “a picture is worth 1,000 words!” All ads include the ability to post a minimum of 3 photos so snap a digital photo or 3 with your smart phone and load them to your ad!
6. Subscription pricing – Subscription pricing is a way to run regular advertising for a fixed monthly fee. For example, let’s say you would like to run 10 ads per month with photos to highlight individual products you sell on a regular basis. This could be anything from cars to food items like candy or clothing, etc. With subscription pricing you can pay a fixed monthly charge and place 10 items in any category or categories that apply. You can change any or all of the ads as often as you would like during the month as long as you don’t exceed your subscription limit of 10 ads. We will have multiple subscription levels available through the new site.
Contact your advertising representative for more information or call Carol at the Echo, (509) 548-5286.
You can still call our office during regular business hours to place a print ad and we will post your print ad to the website at no additional charge.
Check out the site at NCWMarket.com and let us know what you like and what you dislike about the site.