St. Cloud Times Combines Partnerships, Sales Strategy & Marketing to Create Successful Mobile Apps

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1 St. Cloud Times Combines Partnerships, Sales Strategy & Marketing to Create Successful Mobile Apps The St. Cloud Times created a winning strategy for their community-wide application for St. Cloud, Minnesota using Bar-Z s Full Digital Platform. Through partnerships, strategic sales tactics and an extensive marketing plan, they have been able to fulfill a need in the community, gain support and endorsements from key organizations and earn substantial revenue with their Times2Go app. We chatted with Gary Schlickenmayer, Digital Advertising Manager, to learn more about the planning and strategy behind their app s success. Thoughtful Initial Planning & Strategy Development Schlickenmayer explains that the Times embarked on the app project with a unique strategy in mind. They had met with Bar-Z to learn about their options for a mobile app and were interested in moving forward but realized the need for gaining support across the community first. When we first initially took on the project, we saw a need for a community app. We held a round table meeting with the St. Cloud Area Chamber, Downtown Council, Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation and the convention and visitors bureau. We got them around the table with me, the publisher and director. We had the idea of the app in the back of our heads but wanted to make sure they were on board with us. Wanted to see where their thought process was for what St. Cloud was lacking. There was consensus across the group that finding out what is going on in and around the community was not an easy task with people needing to go to six different websites to access that information. All of the attendees agreed that having a central app for the city would be a great idea. The Times decided that the organizations involvement with the app would not be from a financial perspective but they would need them to endorse the app and help to promote it once it was live. Getting these community organizations on-board to support the app from the beginning meant that they would most likely not develop a competing app in the future. Next, the paper took a couple of weeks to hold focus groups with area residents to find out their opinion on What is missing in the St. Cloud area? While the answers they received were across the board, one of 1

2 the things that everyone agreed upon was the need for a central location for information on what to go see and do in the area. Lastly, they brought in the City of St. Cloud. The City agreed to be the main sponsor of the app, but in lieu of traditional sponsorship with in-app branding, they received over 100 location listings in the app to help promote the various parks, trails, lakes and other city amenities. They provided the main funding for the app, which nearly covered the full cost of development. Wide-Ranging App Content The app itself provides an eclectic mix of information ranging from things to do, dining and recreation options to need to know information, real estate listings and a college living section geared towards the area s many college students. With spring in full gear and summer on the horizon, the app is now featuring a festival guide arranged from A-Z. The paper is also using the app to announce the winners of its annual Best of Central Minnesota program. One of the big draws of the app is its over 5,000 listings of things to do in the area which is feeding from the Times website. This app-web integration helps deliver this extensive amount of information to users with a minimum of man-power on the Times side. Working smarter, not harder is an important consideration when developing a new product and Bar-Z s platform and services provide the flexibility to help organizations maximize existing resources. A lot of the app content is also tied to creating synergies with the Times other products and creating a sales strategy that bridges their print and digital offerings. The paper worked with the Central Minnesota Builders Association to create their open house tour of homes. This combination of print and digital sales to the CMBA drove sales and app downloads but also provided the app with fresh, useful content. The geolocation features of the app helped deliver interested folks to the different home locations with mapping and turn-by-turn directions. After the event, the CMBA came back to us and said it was one of the most successful things they have ever done. They loved the Times2Go app. We also got quite a few app downloads due to that too. The Times is also upping their use of the platform s push notification feature to drive user engagement with the app content and looking to add a loyalty card feature for local businesses to build repeat sales and loyal customers. 2

3 Comprehensive & Diverse Sales Strategies The St. Cloud Times overarching sales strategy is to package the app with all of their other print products from the main newspaper to their high gloss lifestyle publications such as Style magazine. They incorporate the app into any of the proposals that they do, at least with a basic app listing into the ad sale. We brought back the college guide but we also put the app in there and combo d it to the advertiser s sale, and gave them a POI (point of interest) listing. These joint combo sales automatically kicked up the POIs in the app tremendously. In the first 3 or 4 months, we made triple of what we paid for the app. We re on track this year to make well above that. College Guide Combination Rate Card 3

4 They offer a tiered app listing approach, selling basic, enhanced and premium app listings with different features, at different price points. They were sensitive to pricing inclusion in the app at a level where they could get buy-in from both large and small businesses. Times2Go Premium App Listing Rate Card They have also had success by targeting big spenders in their community including a major grocery store chain that has purchased multiple locations within the app. When combined with the city sponsorship, that win covered the base cost of app development where any additional ad sales that were generated would be straight profit. They are selling full screen interstitial ads and banner ads and provide price breaks for 3, 6 and 12 month ad campaigns. Offering a la carte app advertising opportunities increases options at all price points even further. To ensure continual growth, they are expanding on the things that they are already doing and making tweaks along the way. 4

5 The app s garage sale section is new. In the past, the paper was selling digital garage sale listings on a minisite but that has since been discontinued with all of these listings going solely on the native apps. The Times found that having their sales staffs cooperation with the app was crucial to closing ad sales, and education about the app was vital. Make sure your team knows how it works. If they don t, how the heck are they going to sell it? There was one sales meeting and all I had them do, for 45 minutes, was play around with the app and ask questions. That s how they got to really understand the Times2Go app. In my situation, to continually grow revenue I have to come up with different products. In the beginning, we thought this was just another product that may go away after a while, but I think they loved it so much that they are still talking about. Even today in our sales meeting they were talking about how cool it was to have the garage sales in the app. You ve got to get your team excited about the app. Extensive Marketing Plan The St. Cloud Times is utilizing a diverse marketing plan that spans all forms of media and events to get the word out about the app. Incorporating their community partners has been important to expanding the marketing reach. All of their community organizations include information about the app on their websites, the Chamber of Commerce hands out flyers at chamber events and newspaper staff have even attended Chamber functions to speak about the app. This was a great decision since the Times employees have a lot of enthusiasm and intimate knowledge about the app, its content and how it works. Table tents at restaurants, coasters at bars, pop-up posters at events and window decals for the businesses that are advertising in the app have been used to reach community members on a smaller scale. Timess2Go Poster 5

6 Times2Go Printed Coasters for Area Bars In order to reach their audience on a broader scale, radio ads, a Facebook pay-per-click campaign and even a billboard was deployed. They have also partnered with the large hockey arena in the area to include ads on the jumbotron and have a booth at games to promote the app. Times2Go Digital Billboard Of course, the Times is also utilizing their own in-house media opportunities to market the app whenever they can. Print advertisements appear in their various publications and digital ads have been used on their website. Any sort of event that the paper produces, such as the Women s Showcase and Taste of Home expo, have some sort of tie-in with the app including banners or street teams handing out information to attendees. 6

7 Times2Go Indoor/Outdoor Vinyl Banner Proven Success The combination of careful planning, thoughtful strategies and great execution has allowed the St. Cloud Times to gain substantial revenue with the addition of their Times2Go app. The Project has earned a 300% ROI in the first 3 months Within just the first 3 months after app launch, the project has seen a 300% return on investment and is poised to earn much more over time. Advertisers and partners have been pleased with the business that the app has driven to their locations or events, providing the Times with repeat advertisers. The Times is committed to continually evolving their app strategies to shift with market conditions and the paper s products and goals. We re excited to see what s next for the Times2Go app. Download the Times2Go App Info@bar-z.com