Creative Circle’s dynamic news and features service for websites — Premium Pages — has added 10 new topic pages and new content providers.
Premium Pages now includes 22 web pages packed with high-interest content that can help drive digital subscriptions or provide the ideal environment for targeted local advertising, sponsorships or branded content.
The new topics are real estate, automotive, trivia & games, technology, agriculture, entertainment, books, small business, lifestyles and Spanish language.
These are in addition to previously launched topics: pets, food, seniors, home improvement, money matters, travel, education & careers, gardening, home improvement, green living, kids & family and outdoors.
“Every one of these topics draws strong readership and we’ve seen the traffic rising steadily on sites where they have been deployed,” said Bill Ostendorf, president and founder of Creative Circle. “That makes them ideal for sponsorships. Even modest success — say 10 monthly sponsorships across the 22 topics for $200/month — would generate $24,000.”
Creative Circle commissioned a national survey during the pandemic asking what topics readers wanted to see more of in their local paper. "While they were interested in COVID news, local newspaper readers also wanted more content on 'soft' topics like food, pets, health, home improvement, education and gardening — things just about every household was more focused on while stuck at home,” said Ostendorf. “We knew newspapers didn’t have the staffing to add this coverage but that inspired us to create Premium Pages. We saw an opportunity to give readers more content they wanted while giving local publishers a great new way to generate revenue, too.”
Premium Pages are web pages designed and curated by editors at Creative Circle and pushed out as finished pages to all the websites subscribing to the service. Layouts are changed two to three times a month and new stories pour in every day, keeping your website fresh. The service delivers between 1,200 and 1,500 stories at any one time. The pages come in six “layers” which are fixed, but publishers can add more layers and for their own content or advertising. The pages work on any platform or website.
The pages are very flexible, easy to use and dynamic because they use Creative Circle's innovative web CMS software.
This content can be used on home pages, too, and in social media, newsletters or in print.
“Newspapers have abandoned a lot of their coverage in these areas because staffs and revenues declined, not because readers weren’t interested,” said Ostendorf. “This is a great way to reconnect with them with content they want.”
New providers added recently include The Conversation, a non-profit news service that turns academic research into readable features. “These are often fascinating stories, like how whales and dolphins sleep. They can’t stop swimming and surfacing to breathe so they only put half their brains to sleep at a time,” says Ostendorf. “Another favorite of mine was a story about why mosquitoes choose to bite one person and not another.”
Stacker is another new provider. “They use government data to create feature stories and extended listicles and they often do pieces that are in the news, like which states had the most student loans and loan breakdowns by size of loan, race and economic level — all right after the administration announced the student loan forgiveness program. It’s good stuff."
“We’re becoming the best way for non-profit news services to distribute their content,” said Ostendorf. “We’re adding new providers and expect to offer state and regional pages in the near future.”
The service is inexpensive and easy to deploy and use.
To learn more about Premium Pages or schedule a demo, contact
Bill Ostendorf, president, bill@creativecirclemedia.com, 401-455-1555
Sean Finch, VP/sales, sean@creativecirclemedia.com, 309-269-7834
Greg Booras, national sales director, greg@creativecirclemedia.com, 563-508-4081
