Staying afloat during a global pandemic

Mar 30, 2020

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to push many small business and local newspapers into dire financial straits. Our-Hometown Inc. aims to help our customers by sharing ideas and proven methods that other publications are using to weather the storm and stay financially viable.

Our friends at SignalsAZ have created a special directory for take-out, deliveries and specials that readers can access to stay up to date on which local businesses are still open and what services are being offered.

They were able to sell some sponsorship ads on this page, making it a “win” for both SignalsAZ and the businesses they are informing.

FloridaWeekly.com has built a resource for their readers to gather important info about the virus itself as well as changes to area businesses and restaurants, reminding the community that they are there for them during these difficult times. Florida Weekly will seek out sponsors for this directory as well, and are also using Google AdSense to generate a few extra dollars from all of the traffic the page is expected to generate.

Additionally, you may be interested in some of the revenue-generating ideas discussed in our February webinar. Many of these techniques could be used to help offset the losses suffered by fleeing advertisers or a lack of a print edition.