HOT PURSUIT
Rest assured, the printed newspaper that most of you are likely holding right now isn’t going anywhere.
However, that doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention to the needs of some readers and how they want to receive their news.
Within the past few weeks, we have begun to offer a new way of receiving your community newspaper every week. It’s an offshoot of our E-Edition.
Back in April I met with John Iacovino, a longtime businessman and brilliant marketing guru from Owatonna and former publisher of the Blooming Prairie Times. At the time we were discussing subscription options for readers. He suggested sending the E-Edition right directly to the inboxes of emails accessible by iPhones or tablets.
It got me thinking, which sometimes can be painful for me. And it took a little technical expertise with our web company. But the end result is something that I think readers may want to consider.
We are doing exactly what Iacovino suggested. For a monthly subscription fee of $5, we will send the entire newspaper (aka: E-Edition) to your email. You will receive the paper each week in your email without having to fumble around on any website to track it down and log in with passwords, which if you’re like me, you forget and then end up cursing the poor device.
Once you receive a ping alerting you to a new email, you just click on the E-Edition and you’ll have our entire newspaper at your fingertips. It’s that easy.
The payment method is a little different than how we handle normal subscriptions. Your credit card will be charged $5 automatically each month for the newspaper until you let us know to stop it.
Feel free to reach out to us to learn more about this great opportunity.
In addition to this new model, we continue to offer the yearly subscription option for print, E-Edition or another new option of both print and E-Edition. For a slightly higher fee, you can continue receiving the paper by the U.S. Mail as well as having access to the E-Edition through our website, which as I indicated earlier requires passwords.
Our goal is to simply meet readers where they’re at. We recognize how technology keeps evolving and we want to offer our newspaper so that readers can enjoy it in whatever format they would like.
Some have suggested in the past that newspapers are like dinosaurs. I beg to differ. That’s simply not the case. We are always striving to offer local news people can’t find anywhere else and in a way that suits them best.
Whether you want to hold the newspaper, go to our website to access the electronic version or have it sent to the inbox of your email, we have you covered in accessing the local community news that you have come to enjoy from us.
And may I reiterate what I started out this column by saying: The printed version of the newspaper is going absolutely nowhere. It’s still my preferred way of reading the newspaper, and I know it’s many of yours as well.
All we’re doing is going in hot pursuit of offering readers options to enjoy one of the nation’s best newspapers.