Newspapers Must Provide Reach and Make It Easier For National Advertisers to Buy

How can individual newspapers attract large-scale national advertisers for their websites? Perhaps forming cooperative networks is the answer. But to date, modern newspapers have missed out on this opportunity according to a recent article on ClickZ.com:

"In order to really get in the online ad game, newspaper sites need to attract national advertiser dollars. Online heavyweights like USAToday.com, The New York Times and WashingtonPost.com may have little trouble wooing big name brands. However, many in the industry agree that the rest of the newspaper sites out there would do well to form a far-reaching network to simplify media buys for national advertisers.

"Scalability is key. National advertisers want broad reach, and that's what they get from the portals and the big ad networks. In order to be viable, the newspaper network should encompass all newspaper sites, from the large daily metros to the alternative weeklies, suggested an unnamed media exec. Were that the case, he said, 'all the unique users on all the newspaper sites would dwarf Yahoo, MySpace and MSN.'"

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