C3’s approach to enriched news

This is the ninth and final section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

News does not come last in my Complete Community Connection plans because it is less important than other content. News remains at the heart of what we do and of our role in the community.

But we know how to cover news in print and broadcast and we have made great strides in learning to cover news in the digital world. We must continue learning and changing in this core job as we transform into C3. We will develop our coverage of news in six primary ways:

• Tell what’s happening right now.
• Engage the community in helping us cover breaking stories and community news.
• Engage the community in watchdog reporting.
• Engage the community in deep and rich coverage of sports.
• Use multimedia and narrative storytelling regularly and extensively.
• Aggregate the best accounts of what’s happening in our communities and Iowa.

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C3’s business services: communication and marketing

This is the third and final part of the business section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

In addition to offering advertising and direct sales opportunities at a host of niche and communitywide sites, the Complete Community Connection should offer a wide range of services to businesses of all sizes:

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C3’s business-service opportunities: Local search

This is the second part of the business section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

With this year’s launch of iGuide, we have started providing a solution for local search. We need to make this more than a business advertising vehicle. We need to make it an indispensable place to connect with businesses and organizations throughout the community.

This is an important example of how we can develop content (and revenue opportunities) based on evergreen use, rather than focusing on our current model in both print and broadcast of selling slots on a particular day or a particular time. Starting with the database already loaded into the iGuide, we need to expand the iGuide and build an audience for it through aggressive promotion on several fronts:

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C3’s business services: Direct sales

This is the first part of the business section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

I am convinced that media companies could have avoided the disruption we are facing today if we had seized 15 years ago upon the possibilities for direct sales online. They are the logical way to do business in the digital world and we have already lost billions of dollars in sales and an opportunity to develop a new business model by standing idly by while Amazon, eBay, Ticketmaster, hotel reservation systems and hundreds of other vendors bypassed us and figured out how to sell directly to the consumer online.

But our bread and butter has always been local businesses and many local businesses in our communities and every community are still struggling to catch up in the digital marketplace, just as we are. A media company that can provide a digital marketplace for its community and help guide local businesses to success in that marketplace still faces tremendous opportunities.

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C3’s business connection services

This is the eighth section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

The Complete Community Connection needs to become a one-stop shop for businesses and community organizations in the communities we serve to connect with customers and other people they serve. Traditional advertising in print, broadcast and online will remain part of that. I won’t address traditional advertising here, just as I won’t address traditional news coverage in the section on enhanced news. We know how to do traditional advertising and we need to continue offering that service. But our growth opportunities lie in our ability to develop new ways to serve businesses:

• Direct sales
• Local search
• Mobile opportunities
• Business communication and marketing services

Continue reading the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection with C3’s business services: Direct sales.

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C3’s entertainment opportunities

This is the seventh section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. 

Entertainment has always been an underrated part of newspaper content. But every editor who changes crossword puzzle syndicates or drops a comic strip knows that entertainment is a valued and essential part of newspaper content. And, of course, entertainment remains an essential consumer use of television content, though not on the local level.

As the Complete Community Connection develops our network for the future, we need to keep entertainment in mind in a variety of ways.

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Personal-content opportunities: Memorials

This is the 16th and final part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

Obituaries are not a one-day story. They are the final account of a person’s life. Whether the newspaper writes its own obituary or publishes one submitted by the family or funeral home, that should be just the start. The Complete Community Connection needs to provide opportunities for deeper personal content.

The dearly departed should get her own memorial page (linked to the page on our site that she had in life, if she had one), where family members can add remembrances, photos and videos.

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Personal-content opportunities: Holidays

This is the 15th part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. 

Holiday shopping has always been big business for newspapers and television. The Complete Community Connection can make it bigger.

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Personal-content opportunities: Reunions

This is the 14th part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

Reunions are another event that’s big news in small circles that the Complete Community Connection needs to pursue.

Families, graduating classes, military units, fraternities, sororities and other groups need to get web pages or social networks to keep members posted on reunions and other events. When they register an event, prompts will guide them in sending automated emails to members (sponsored by local businesses interested in reaching the kind of group that’s gathering), booking and mapping the venue(s), offering members blocks of room and reservation opportunities.

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Personal-content opportunities: Retirement

This is the 13th part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. 

Retirement may not be a fertile market with today’s retirees, who tend to prefer print and broadcast to digital communication. But Baby Boomers are starting to retire and the Complete Community Connection should develop personal-content platforms to serve them. 

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Personal-content opportunities: Empty nesters

This is the 12th part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.

Another life stage where the Complete Community Connection can provide rich content and pursue new revenue opportunities is the empty nest.

We can help empty nesters build maps showing where the children have scattered, so you can click and open windows for each offspring, with information and photos of in-laws, grandchildren, etc. Another map could track the empty nesters’ travels. They could compile wish lists of things to do before they retire, with gift registries so family and friends can use birthdays, holidays and anniversaries to help their dreams come true. When they register, they would fill out their interests, so we can email advice and advertising to help with health, travel, hobbies and financial planning.

Continue reading the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection with Personal content opportunities: Retirement.

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Personal-content opportunities: Illness

This is the 11th part of the personal content section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. 

As I wrote a couple of months ago, illness was a staple of the small-town newspaper where I started in this business. It also is an opportunity for the Complete Community Connection.

When someone is hospitalized or at home recovering from an illness or homebound with an extended or terminal illness, we need to give them a web page (or a part of their existing page) to keep people posted on how they’re doing. They could enter their hospital and the page would automatically post visiting hours.

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