Founded in 1975 by Martha Cichelli, Software Consulting Services, LLC (SCS) has been providing software solutions to publishers and publishing groups. Martha's husband, Richard Cichelli, joined SCS in 1983 after working for the ANPA Research Institute. Richard and Martha have decided, after 45 years, to retire from active participation in SCS, and Kurt Jackson, SCS's vice president and general manager, has agreed to purchase the company.
A few weeks ago, Column was honored to win the Wyncubator Pitch Competition, hosted at the Wynwood Walls by Goldman Properties, OnDeck and Mayor Francis Suarez. Column competed with four other finalists to win one year of free office space in Miami.
He’s been a publisher, an advertising director and a columnist at daily and weekly newspapers — and now works for a publishing company owned by his son. Throughout his long career in journalism, John Speck has always included Kid Scoop in newspapers in California, Texas and Arkansas for more than 25 years. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he and his son, Adam, started The Fort Report, a “good news” monthly newspaper in 2020, the owner of the local Burger King franchise told Speck, “We’ll never stop advertising! We get hundreds of the coupons for a free ice cream cone back to us every month.”
The challenges facing news organizations demonstrate why it is important for publishers to utilize a robust combined revenue strategy that harmonizes subscription and advertising data collection and profit conversions. Beyond the strategy, however, publishers must also ensure they have updated systems and tactical processes to streamline their relationships with advertisers. In an era where the publisher-advertiser relationship is crucially co-dependent for financial success, Lineup’s Pay4Media offers one tech tool that can contribute to a frictionless experience that strengthens that relationship and its profit outcomes.
At the recent Great Western Audience Development Summit, AAM’s Kevin Rehberg shared an update on digital ad fraud, and the steps publishers can take to stand out to advertisers and earn more digital ad revenue. Here are the highlights of that presentation and ideas on how publishers can demonstrate their commitment to creating a quality digital advertising environment.
Since the program launched with a pilot group of 114 schools, 10,000 local readers have discovered newspaper obituaries for former classmates, teachers and administrators. To meet demand, Legacy will release 3,850 more high school pages by July 31. Read more about the program and add a local high school to the priority launch list.
The Yakima Herald-Republic and Walla Walla Union-Bulletin have selected Layout-8000 and SCS/ClassPag from SCS. Owned by The Seattle Times Co., the Washington-based daily newspapers will be running the systems in the SCS cloud with a "go live" planned for Sept. 1.
Larry Ham, the general manager for AIM Media Indiana was in a bind, as an unanticipated surge in demand had left his supply of newsprint short for the month. However, as one of the 450 publications in the PAGE Cooperative, Larry knew that he could count on PAGE to try to solve the shortfall, and he picked up the phone and called the CEO of PAGE, Gary Blakeley.
SCS is announcing a paradigm-shifting new application called Automated News Pagination (ANP) that automatically paginates news pages utilizing SCS AI. ANP does not rely on endless InDesign templates. Instead, it uses content-package template abstractions that can create multiple paginated page results that editors and creatives can choose from.
As group gatherings get rolling again, and travel is poised to reach a new pandemic high — Forbes reports nearly nine in 10 American travelers plan to travel in the next six months — use resources from your MCC Libraries to prepare your publication, your advertisers and your readers. Here’s an overview of layouts, images, pages and ideas to support restarting events, activities and travel planning in your community:
Be sure to join Matt Larson of Our-Hometown July 15 when he will be presenting a free webinar for members of America's Newspapers on Email Newsletter Basics. Also, learn how FREE newspapers can create digital PAID subscriptions, plus view his archived webinar recordings on topics relating to producing and promoting your newspaper!
Presteligence, an industry leading software developer and innovator, announces Paxton Media will deploy NewsXtreme Cloud at its print sites in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina and Mississippi.
Every publisher faces a common challenge: how to convert audiences with low propensity to subscribe. Mather's research shows that two thirds of conversions come from the most engaged 2 percent of audience. In this case study of a "low propensity promo offer," see what Mather found works best!
Many publishers have historically had the sole focus of increasing their page views to increase their advertising revenues. However, many publishers have instead shifted their focus to complement this goal by also driving audience engagement — getting their existing audiences to move up a value exchange to drive increased revenues through subscriptions and memberships. The team at Building a Subscription Business are doing a deep dive on the topic of engagement and its link to commercial value in the publishing industry in their forthcoming report "Engagement Economics."
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Milestones are the stories placed by readers to mark cherished life events, including births, birthdays, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and more. In fact, these Milestones are not only a popular legacy paid content section for the local readers, but they can also draw in digital traffic. Here is a quick review of the most popular Milestone paid content types that publishers can offer to their local community members.
The past decade has revealed that programmatic advertising isn’t the golden ticket media organizations once thought it was, but it’s still a valuable piece of the revenue mix. Nearly 70% of digital media buys in 2019 were programmatic, up 4% from the predicted 65%. This demonstrates that programmatic advertising is far from dead — rather, it’s evolving. In this article, we’ll explore why both programmatic and direct ad sales are well suited for growth in 2021, and how they serve different purposes for publishers.
Many publishers are experiencing a softening of demand for new subscriptions in 2021 as the big stories of 2020 — the COVID pandemic and the U.S. election cycle — no longer generate the same traffic to news sites they once did. The ebb and flow of subscription demand is a pattern observed for decades in the newspaper business, and this blog post will share a few lessons to help publishers maximize their subscription revenue and customer lifetime value. We will use a metaphor of riding a wave as we discuss how best to manage a subscription business during a news cycle.
Recent data indicates more than half of American consumers expect a “return to normalcy” by the Fourth of July. In Canada, communities across the country plan to host organized outdoor public events for Canada Day, such as parades, carnivals, festivals, barbecues, fireworks, concerts, air and maritime shows, and citizenship ceremonies. With anticipation high, your MCC Libraries have the ads, images and sales ideas you need to help local advertisers capture the attention and business of consumers who are ready to celebrate at home and locally.
The Alliance for Audited Media recently announced its partnership with the IAB Tech Lab to integrate AAM-audited digital publishers into the IAB Tech Lab Compliance Registry, a free online resource that lists companies that have successfully completed select industry compliance programs. All AAM-audited domains that have completed the AAM Digital Publisher Audit are now included in the registry under the "Other Industry Compliance" tab. Here are five things to know about this integration and the AAM Digital Publisher Audit.
The California News Publishers Association and Column, a public benefit software startup, have announced a long-term strategic partnership designed to transform the future of public notice for the most populous state in the country. In partnership with Column, CNPA members will have access to public notice software that they can deploy to streamline internal operations and deliver a powerful new customer experience for local governments, legal services and businesses that are required to place notices.
The Challenge: Axel Springer needed a violet plate with the ability to run cleanly, fast and efficiently with a minimum of startup waste. The Solution: KODAK LIBRA VP2 Digital Plates fit into Axel Springer’s operation smoothly, and the easy transition and excellent performance of the plate on one CTP line prompted the migration to LIBRA VP2 on a second line.
The Cadet newspaper, the independent voice of the Corps of Cadets and Alumni of the Virginia Military Institute, went from a signed contract with Presteligence to a completed 20-page publication in under three weeks time using My News 360 CMS, InDesign extension and STATUS.
READ THIS CASE STUDY to see how The Columbian improved productivity, lowered production costs, made its advertising customers happier and received satisfying customer support from Software Consulting Services.
The Navajo Times, a weekly for-profit corporation wholly-owned by the Navajo People (not its government), lost many of its sponsors — a local utility, car dealerships and small family restaurants — when the COVID-19 virus swept through right after starting to publish Kid Scoop. But the publisher has made a commitment to continue the weekly page for families through 2021, with or without sponsors.
Families and individuals are preparing meals at home more than ever. We all eat. In fact, food is the #3 searched topic on the internet. Give readers another reason to engage with your website by getting back in, or going bigger in, the food business. American Hometown Media has developed recipes and how-to videos around food. These recipes will live on your site, display the most popular recipes trending at that time, and provide a "set it and forget it" revenue stream.
Pugpig knows the importance of providing high quality digital product experiences for regional and local news readers. The Crain Communication Business titles in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, JPI and MNA Digital portfolios in the United Kingdom and Australia Community Media have all launched their local news apps on the Pugpig platform in the last few months. Pugpig was founded on the principles that publishing is important and that it has a great future, and to that end, local news is vital to the communities that its journalism serves.
As the weather gets warmer and the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues, outdoor meetings offer media companies an alternative to hosting video calls while working from home (which will likely remain the norm for several more months). Al fresco meetings are a great idea for advertising sales teams hoping to get some face time with their customers while staying safe and opting for fresh air rather than close indoor contact. In this article, we’ll explore 7 ideas for your next outdoor meeting and share how Lineup Systems’ Adpoint Go solution can help you close deals from anywhere.
