We all know that this is a digital age. People are spending most or all of the time being present at different social media sites or websites. This change has brought almost to every part of society. Like, who must have thought that we would be forgetting our habit of reading morning newspapers and binge reading all the news online?
That is the main reason news agency being dependent on digital marketing. Yes, you heard it right that digital marketing for news publishers is playing an important role in their constant growth. This is irrespective of moving from traditional way to digital way.
For some people, digitalization is a boon and for some, it is a complete curse. Have you wondered why?
I guess, it is because of the things we choose to follow and take from what digitalization is giving us. Some focus on the good and some focus on the bad.
But what if we all focus on the bright side of the internet age? Wouldn’t it be a great way of appreciating the change in society?
We all know that the digital age has changed a lot of things in our society and a way of looking up to things. If we perceive this change positively then it can create a huge change in our mindset or may give birth to a lot of innovations. That hasn’t yet come into existence.
Now, in a time where everyone is running and getting late for something, Internet has made a few things easy for them. For keeping them updated with everything they need. So, reading news has now found a digital way of reaching their mind. Newspapers are not worthy for young generations.
In this blog today, we will learn how digital marketing for news publishers is helping them to survive in the digital market. I will be sharing everything regarding digital marketing and how it is helping news publishers, and how they can shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing.
Hang in there. I have a lot for you to read, understand, and learn of course.
What does a news publisher mean?
A news publisher means a business firm or a proprietor who publishes a newspaper. As its name suggests, they publish different news on daily basis on the command of news agencies who gather all the news from different sources.
News publishers are only focused on bringing every kind of news to your ears, whether it is regarding politics, entertainment, sports, health, or other sections of society. They are working tirelessly to make you updated with everything going around the world.
As you know, news publishers work on bringing news to you through different mediums like newspapers, television, magazines, and digital content.
Who provides news to news publishers, do you know? Let me tell you, the different news about the country and outside country on different issues are being fed by News agencies to News publishers. They give every kind of news information to them and as a result, they publish it on a different mode of communication to the general public.
In the times of digital marketing, the news content on digital platforms is being much appreciated due to its availability at any time and anywhere. That’s why we are here going to learn how digital marketing for news publishers helps in bringing relevant news to our hands.
What is Digital Marketing?
I have been using the word digital marketing from the very beginning of this blog, but I just got clicked, are you aware of its meaning? You may or may not. But anyway, I will be going to let you know its meaning because that’s how you are going to relate more.
Digital marketing refers to market and promotes your business or any work to the public through different forms of digital communication. This includes several marketing channels through which we can market such as, social media marketing, e-mail marketing, content marketing, SEO, PR advertising, PPC, etc. All these channels are responsible for bringing customers to a business.
Digital marketing has grown a lot in a few recent years. It was always there from the beginning but people weren’t much aware of its benefits. But now with each passing second, we are witnessing a different side of digital marketing.
It is maybe because the internet has become an ultimate part of our lives. We cannot imagine a life without the internet. The Internet has brought so many innovations to the world. One of such is Digital Marketing, itself.
There are at present countless digital marketing agencies in the market, who are working tirelessly for so many big companies. Handling their customer base and bringing new people to the clan.
There are different types of digital marketing mediums which are used daily like, content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, Affiliate marketing, digital advertising, Search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, etc. these are the most used form of digital marketing.
Why digital marketing is important for news publishers?
As you know, the most used and most famous form of communicating news to every people at their doorstep was Newspapers. But with the introduction of the digital age, newspapers have lost their identity. They become mere a piece of paper. So, it has become a challenge for news publishers as to how they can still find ways of bringing news to people.
This need and challenge of news publishers were fulfilled by digital marketing. Digital marketing has given different modes of reaching readers in a way other than newspapers. Newspapers are still there but they are mostly preferred by people who only love to consume news through newspapers like our fathers and grandfathers.
But our new generation, who is shuttling in their work and personal life cannot find time to sit and read a newspaper. They want something instant to consume everything going around the world and that need has been met by digital marketing for news publishers.
They have introduced different new ways of bringing news to their hands through their devices. Now, are you still wondering why digital marketing is important for news publishers? I guess you have got a mere idea of what digital marketing meant to news publishers.
But there are a lot more things to know why it plays such an important role for news publishers. So, here are the following reasons of its importance;
- Through digital marketing, you can target your prospective customers who are available online. They will likely read and consumer news on different digital platforms.
- There is no doubt that digital marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing. It saves the cost of paper and also reduces the use of paper, which is very important environmentally.
- It will make you competitive and will let you survive in the market against your competitors, who have adopted digital marketing way before than you.
- Digital marketing will let you measure the success of the news publisher, through different tools and analytics used in digital marketing.
This why digital marketing for news publishers is important. It connects people to news publishers who were losing customers in traditional mode. This gives possibilities to reach far more customers and keep them engaged in your news content.
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Digital marketing tools- Helping news publishers
Now, we will learn and understand how digital marketing can help news publishers establishing their presence online. Here, I will share different digital marketing tools which are working for news publishers to reach their new-age customers. These tools belong to digital marketing and are practiced in introducing the digital side of the world to people.
Let’s not waste any time and jump into these tools to understand more.
Building a website
Building a website is the best way of tapping and engaging your readers into the news you are publishing. You can add a lot of traffic to your website. Generally, people are not open to this idea of creating a website, or maybe they are not much savvy to its technical use.
That’s why they don’t entertain this thought. But the website is the most effective tool for digital marketing. It leads to generate a lot of customers for your business. And news publishers are no different, it will similarly work for them.
You can bring a news website into life in the form of a news portal, where people can look for every kind of news. It will be easy for them to read the news any time by just visiting the news portal on their devices.
Now, let me guide you on how can you build a website for your business? The answer lies in the steps here;
- Draft a business plan
The business plan consists of everything you want to have on a news website. It makes you understand the things which must be done to make the website come into existence. A business plan will have the name of your business, the kind of news you will be going to share, will jot down a revenue strategy, and will outline a plan for marketing and advertising. It will give you an outlook on things that need to be included and kept in mind while creating a news website.
- Choose a platform
This step refers to choosing a platform where you will create your news website from the different sites available in the market. Such as WordPress, Medium, Tumblr, Blogger, etc. Out of these, the best site for a news website is WordPress.
Everyone in the market uses WordPress, it is the most popular yet most effective website for any news publisher to start with. Always choose a platform that is scalable and flexible for your news publishing house. Because that’s what will be going to help you in creating an effective news platform
- Select the best plugins
Plugins are used to help in improving your website’s functionality. If we will add a plugin to our website, it will gain an access to a new feature. One of the popular plugins among news publishers is the Google Analytics plugin.
For example, a WP News and scrolling widget plugin can open your WordPress news website into a potent area of the web which is full of updated news categories that you have set and defined.
- Write and publish news
The next and most important step is to share valuable and important news on your news website to keep people updated about all the current affairs. You must focus on the content you are sharing on your website; it must be customer-focused. You can decide before what kind of news you will going to publish on your news website. It will help you focus on that area only.
- Advertise your website
If you want digital marketing for news publishers to work well, you need to advertise it to the advertisers for advertising your website. Before they would agree, they will see that whether the content is worth advertising or not.
So, before jumping into advertising make sure that you have worked well on your content. A news publisher is using one of the digital marketing tools which are building a news portal, must want to advertise it to a large public. Because that’s how it is going to reach a vast audience.
These are the steps you can follow to create your news website or portal. If you are stuck anywhere between these steps, you can take the help of a digital marketer. We are also a digital marketer at Traffic Tail, working tirelessly to give a seamless experience to our clients.
Focus on Content Marketing
Content marketing holds an important part in digital marketing. So, indirectly it is also important for news publishers to focus on their content. Without sharing informative and worthy-to-read content, you cannot engage more audiences. Your content would be approachable to the public to give their precious time to read what you have shared.
Creating content that suits your news brand is a crucial yet important task to be done with a certain time frame. Otherwise, the audience you would have gained will be lost. So, make a content marketing strategy, in the beginning, to assure that you provide Fresh and effective content.
Why a news publisher should invest in content marketing?
Content is the most important thing which your audience consumes from your brand. If your content will not be of any value to them then they would not be going to prefer your news site. All a customer wants is content that adds value to their knowledge. If your content is not doing that it means you need to change your content strategy.
On the other hand, if your content is valuable and approachable but you are not getting any audience that must be on your side. Then, you need to see how your content is approaching. You have to drive traffic to your content.
And this would be possible through organic traffic. This is how people would discover you at different platforms like Google, etc. These people would specifically be looking for you and your content. They want the kind of information you are feeding.
All this would be possible through content marketing. Content marketing has strategies that can be applied to any person. These content marketing strategies will be useful for news publishers.
How content strategy would work?
Now, when you know that you need content marketing for equipping people with your content. It’s time to think about how you can do it? You know people are looking for your content, so you must be aware of what people want. If you will continue to emphasize and upgrade such kind of content, then you will certainly succeed.
If you will not work according to their needs and wants, then there is less chance of any success. And if there is no success then how digital marketing for news publishers would be a great deal.
So, at this stage make a strategy to gain more audience. There are three simple steps which you must follow, and they are;
1. Who are your customers?
This is the most important thing to determine. The first step to determine who you are targeting. You need to think from your customer’s point of view and speak their mind. For this, you need to do thorough research. At this step you are trying to know who are the people reaching your content and so that you can target them specifically.
2. Figure out their need
When you have known the target customers, it’s now time to figure out what they want. What kind of content they are reading? Why they are reading? What value your content is adding to their lives? which of their problem your content is solving? Why they should continue to choose you? These are the questions you must figure out so that you can conquer their needs.
3. How to say it?
Now, when you know what they want? Your next step will be to figure out how you can say it? How you can produce your content for them? What format? What font? What information? All these questions must be well answered. The better you understand your audience’s choice, the better you will become in the market.
These are the steps which must be maintained and followed to reach the mind of your customers. Content marketing would do it all if you use it well.
4. Search Engine Optimisation
Another important aspect of digital marketing. SEO is the main practice of reaching more audiences by using the Google algorithm. Content must have to be SEO-friendly. A content that is not SEO friendly would not generate much traffic to the content.
Writing good and worthy content is one thing and writing SEO-friendly content is another. In the digital marketing era, these both are equally important for any business.
As you know, some people still use google to search for the latest news and trends, which makes it obvious for you to use google algorithms in your content. If your content will be SEO Friendly, then it would reach right in front of your customer. The news publishers must make an SEO strategy to rank on Google searches.
Why SEO for news publishers is important?
SEO is a part of digital marketing and digital marketing for news publishers is important, so indirectly SEO is important for them. This is the upfront answer one can give. But we will not satisfy you with this answer. There is much more to this.
The reason why news publishers are following the practice of SEO is simple, “they want traffic into their news website”. Who doesn’t want to? This is the most obvious reason which a person is having. If you are a news publisher then SEO would help you to generate more audience organically. The SEO is the free practice one can use without paying for traffic generation.
A news publisher who wants its article to fall on the front page of google searches should start using search engine optimization. Also, a website must be mobile-friendly to ensure a better reach. As you know, most people use their smartphones to read the news these days so a publisher must use a mobile-friendly website.
How to use Search engine optimization?
Now, after knowing the importance of SEO the next question raised is how can we use SEO? So, there are the following steps to indulge in SEO;
1. Increase Page load time
The first step is to increase your page load times. Your website must not be slow because it might affect the people. People are not easy having a slow page loading experience. If your website is excessively slow, then you must see a web developer to work on this. You can take the help of our web developer team at Traffic Tail, who are professional web designers.
2. Make your content appear in Google News
This is an important step to make your content appear on google news. It gives your content more accessibility than ever. If your content is not appearing on google news, just make sure to go through google news guidelines. It will help you to comply with all the google standards. You can easily learn to fall on Google’s news feed. You just need to do some research.
3. Make sure to organize your website
When you are determining to work with Google, then you should focus on cleaning and organizing your website. It plays an important role in Deciding google ranking. You should take the help of a web developer to organizing your website. It will improve your SEO.
4. Use of right keywords
For deciding your google search success, using SEO-friendly content plays an important role. So, using a few keywords which people generally look for while searching on google would be a great idea. It is good to research the keywords which your audience is searching to make it more worthy.
These are the steps you can follow to use SEO for making sure that the news you are publishing reaches the right audience. If you want to know more on how you can optimize your news portal for a better google ranking. Then, you can read our blog on news portal optimization for better ranking on google.
Video Marketing
Today, if we see around there are the majority of people who are not keen on reading news or anything. Instead, they are keener to watch. They consume more videos about anything than reading an article about the same. This is the main reason for the introduction of video marketing. Because more and more people are inclined to this.
Video marketing plays a pivotal role for news publishers which is one of the important aspects of digital marketing. So, digital marketing for news publishers is still saving the game.
A lot of news publishers use this tool to reach the mind of more people. They know how to target their audience. This has created competition in the market. Now, everyone is using video marketing. They made several clips about the news for their consumers, which has a higher chance of being consumed than a normal article.
Seeing all this trend, news publishers are using video marketing for reaching a larger customer base. Here are the steps a publisher can follow to build a video marketing strategy;
1. Determine your video goals
The first step in creating a video marketing strategy is to outline the goals you want to achieve through video marketing. It talks about the different stages of targeting a customer. To whom you are targeting? For whom you are making videos? L
ike there are different sectors in news such as sports, entertainment, politics, current affairs, etc. So, you first have to decide whether you want to make separate videos for all these sections or you want to add all of them in one video. These are the video goals that you need to decide before going ahead.
2. Find the target audience
The next step is to reach out to your target audience. When you know what kind of videos you are making it’s now time to understand who are the audiences go by which section. Like, sports news will more likely to be consumed by sports-loving people, entertainment news will derive people who love entertainment, politics will be for people who indulge in it, etc.
In simple terms, make a room for such things which your customer would appreciate and can relate to. It will automatically derive traffic to your brand.
3. Keep it creative
By this step, I mean to make creative content that keeps the interest of the public in your publishing house. Find a way of telling what you want to tell, whether you want it simple and straight, or you want to brief in a way of telling a story. The choice must be creative which keeps the interest alive of your audience.
4. Choose a time
You must also decide a time to post your videos which will make your audience mark their schedule to hear news from your production. This is another way of keeping the audience indulge in you. Also, it helps you to choose a time at which people are more likely to be available.
5. Your purpose must be clear
The message or the news you want to produce must have a clear purpose. It must not be vague. It must not be showing a thing other than the thing you are intending to show. If your audience fails to understand your videos, they are most likely to shift to other options. So, make it clear.
This is how a component of digital marketing can help news publishers to establish themselves in the digital market.
6. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is another component of digital marketing that is being used by a lot of publishers. Social media fulfills every need of a publisher from promoting the news to reaching a global audience.
Social media has brought everyone together. A business and a customer can deal directly without even meeting each other. Through the possible ways of social media marketing.
There are many social media platforms helping news publishers to not only target the domestic audience but the global audience at large. Social media platforms have made it possible to reach as many people as possible.
Following are the social media platforms where social media marketing has been intended to apply;
Facebook is the world-famous social media platform. It is the main component of social media marketing. A lot of competitive news publishers are producing news on Facebook for reaching more consumers. If you are looking to use Facebook for reaching more audiences then start posting content. Choose the right time to publish and post through stories, posts, video clips, carousel, etc.
Instagram is another most used social media platform after Facebook in the world. Instagram has a more global audience. If you decide to choose Instagram then make sure to post-worthy content. Because Instagram provides more chances of making your content viral. You can post through feed, stories, videos, reels, etc.
Twitter is another trending social media platform, which you can say is a hub of News. Twitter has the latest news and is very wide globally. If you are publishing your news on Twitter, it can be a great advantage of getting leads. You can share the links of your website to generate great traffic on your website through Twitter.
LinkedIn is another social media platform where people are grabbing informative content. If your news publisher house shares business-related news then LinkedIn can be a great platform for sharing business news.
These are the major social media platform which you can use to reach more audience on a global level. Social media marketing is an impactful way of enlarging the audience.
- Creating a mobile application
News mobile applications are becoming the new trend of the market. There are a lot of news publishers who are using a mobile application for targeting more people easily. Introducing a mobile application for your business is the easiest way to give people what they want to get what you want for your publishing house.
In this time, where people are completely occupied and cannot find time to open a newspaper or click on any site, mobile applications do wonders. You must have seen people downloading news applications on their smartphones.
Because they don’t equip with all the news telecasting on Television or printed on newspaper. They prefer to check important news for which they use mobile applications like TOI, in shorts, google news, etc. so many mobile applications are still developing, daily.
This is how digital marketing for news publishers in the market is working.
There is no doubt that mobile applications are more in used than mobile websites. They provide the consumable and crispy way of delivering news to the hands of customers.
If you don’t have a mobile app for your news channel then please develop one. Traffic Tail can help you in developing a mobile application at affordable prices with more easy accessibility.
So, this is how digital marketing can change the picture of your news publishing house. It can be possible only if you change certain ways of looking at things and start taking it from the point of view of your consumers.
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How will you implement digital marketing?
Now, we have talked about the role of digital marketing in the journey of news publishers, it’s time to understand how does digital marketing for news publishers works?
To understand it in a better way, I have broken it into the following steps. These steps can easily be followed, once you will learn them;
1. Define the goals
The first and foremost important step is to know what are the goals of your news publishing house, what you want to achieve, what you are aiming for? Without understanding the role of your goals, you cannot achieve the results you are longing for.
You need to define goals. In digital marketing, determining goals help you to get the exact results you want. Do you want to increase your audience? Do you want to expand your news publishing channel?
Do you want to create brand awareness for the news publishing house? As long as you are not aware of the answers to these questions you will be in dilemma. So, define your goals and then work towards them.
2. Recognize your target audience
When we are talking about digital marketing, it will not be right to say that there is no target audience. Because there will always be going to be a target audience. After all, everything is done to attain the attention of the target audience.
Through digital marketing, you can target a specific audience for your business. But it will only be possible when you know whom to target. That means you must recognize the audience for your news publishing house.
Perhaps your target audience will depend on the kind of stuff you are bringing into the news. Such as sports, entertainment, politics, business, etc.
3. Establish a budget
Can you think of doing anything without setting a budget for the same? Of course, not. Without setting a budget for your digital marketing strategies or advertising campaigns, you cannot go further. Your budget for digital marketing for news publishers will depend on the strategies you are using under digital marketing.
Whether you are building a news portal, a mobile application, planning social media marketing, or optimizing your news channel. The budget will depend on all these factors. Everything costs differently with different results, so choose and set a standard budget.
4. Create engaging news
You know without grabbing or keeping the attention of readers, you cannot grow or go any further. You need to create content that must be creative and engaging enough to make readers come to you, time and again.
You can easily target the audience but keeping your audience forever into you, is a tough task. And that is the main thing you must do under digital marketing. It doesn’t matter how you are engaging people, whether it is through social media posts, optimized content, blog posts, short videos, long videos, etc.
What is important is that you are engaging people into you. Besides this, your content must be creative and interesting to keep people’s eye on you.
5. Use digital marketing strategies
When you have gained an in-depth knowledge of digital marketing, it’s now time to implement its strategies. Using digital marketing strategies is the ultimate way of implementing everything you have learned.
The strategy you want to choose which will work more effectively for your news channel must be executed. It can be content marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, PPC, mobile marketing, web designing, etc. You can also implement more than one strategy at one time.
These are the above steps you can implement to see how digital marketing for news publishers is working in the market.
Top Ranking news portal websites in India
Digital marketing has left the traditional form of newspapers behind, now everyone is just preferring the digital mode of keeping themselves updated with currents affairs.
Here is the list of Top-Ranking news portal websites in India;
- Times of India
- India Today
- The Indian Express
- NDTV News
- The quint
- The financial express
- Economics Times
- The Hindu
- News18
- See Latest
These are the news publishers who have the top-ranking news portal in India. What do you think, how it becomes possible to rank top? Let me tell you, it has become possible just because of digital marketing. Digital marketing has paved their way into the digital world, where they are working well.
If you want to know more about these top-ranking news portals, then you can read our blog on the Top 15 News portal websites in India.
Conclusion
The digital world is waiting for more news publishers to outshine the existing publishers with something innovative and great. This blog has written to outline the importance of digital marketing for news publishers. I hope it has given you the value your publishing house is lacking so that you can work on it.
News publishers are an important part of human society. They are adding value to their daily life. They are providing information about what is happening in the world at your hands. They can remove the gap of knowledge between our young generation and newspapers. For that, digital marketing is the only way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How much it cost to develop a news portal website?
The cost of a news portal website depends on different factors. It depends on the needs and requirements of a news publisher. But on average a news portal website costs Rs 10,000.
Q2. Is keyword research important for news content?
Yes, keyword research is important for news content as it is a part of content marketing. Keyword research helps people to reach your content through searching simple keywords which you have used in your content.
Q3. Does an optimized web news portal cost?
Yes, optimization of web news portal cost a few pence. It is because you take the help of a web developer to optimize your news web portal, who charges his services. If you want to have affordable optimization then you can contact us at Traffic Tail. We are an affordable digital marketing agency in India.
Q4. Does social media marketing effective for news publishers?
Yes, social media marketing is one of the most effective tools for news publishers who are longing to reach a global audience. Social media marketing is an easy way of sharing news on different social media platforms with different people. You can share any kind of news on social media platforms through creative posts, carousels, videos, stories, etc.
Q5. How much a mobile news application cost?
It is a little difficult to determine the cost of a mobile news application because no matter how much budget you have fixed for it you will have to cut down few costs. Developing software costs a little more than usual.
Especially, news mobile applications are effective and most used form in digital marketing, which is the main reason for its high cost. But if you want it at affordable prices, then you can take the help of Traffic Tail. They have affordable pricing for everything.
