In journalism, we try our best to avoid shameless plugs.
That said, here is this week’s shameless plug, on behalf of . . . Wrangler News, and its readers and advertisers. People just like you! (Hey, we own the joint, we’re entitled!)
Wrangler News has called this neck of the woods home for nearly three decades. This is your neighborhood, but it’s ours, too. We care about it. We want to contribute to making it better.
As we’ve conveyed to you over the past few weeks, we are making changes here. Don’t be spooked by the word “change.” The Wrangler News print edition that is delivered to your driveway, free, still is going to be delivered to your driveway, free.
It’s our website, which has been here for you for a while now, where we are picking up speed with more robust, immediate content.
When the police chief resigns, or the school district superintendent retires, or somebody is hiring, you get that here first at wn.calicoeng.com.
Not only do we want our readers to migrate to our website to help us increase our reach, we want our advertisers to feel comfortable doing so, as well, to increase their reach. If you own a business, let us tell your story with print and online advertisements. If you know an owner, encourage them to advertise with us!
How’s it all going? This is the part that is really exciting to us and should be exciting to any advertiser looking to reach an engaged, educated, affluent audience.
As of noon today, Oct. 22, our metrics show that our wn.calicoeng.com page views are up a whopping 164 percent over the previous 30 days, and the average duration of a session, the time visitors are on a page, is up 52 percent over the previous 30 days. We expect these numbers to continue to rise as we continue to offer more compelling content to you.
The QR code that you saw on the cover of our last print Wrangler (it is there again on our new print edition that begins hitting your driveways today) did what we hoped it would: Bring new readers to wn.calicoeng.com. Newspapers across the country are trying to figure out how best to transition readers to online. To the best of our knowledge, we are the only one, large or small, using a QR code to do this. It’s an experiment that worked!
We’re small, but we’re mighty, and we’re doing our best to also be cutting edge in order to bring you the best.
Once we get you here, we’ll give you content that you won’t necessarily see in print. We’ll be rolling out more new content and opportunities to engage with us in coming weeks, so stay tuned.
We’re excited about the changes we’re making, but we want you to be excited about them, too. Are we covering things that interest you? What are we not covering that you’d like to see on our website and on our print pages? How might we better connect with you?
If you have suggestions on how we might do that, drop me at line at lee.shappell@wn.calicoeng.com.
And finally, advertising is the lifeblood of a media organization. Without that revenue, we can’t bring you the news, information and engagement that make us your go-to source for everything in South Tempe, West Chandler and a bit beyond.
It costs money to do that.
Please support our advertisers. Not only are they essential to us, they’re an essential element of the fabric of our community, one that we hope to tighten as we attempt to engage more closely with you.
We want to point out to you, if you don’t know already, that the ads here on our website are clickable! Click on the ad and be taken directly to the advertiser’s website to receive the full message that they want to deliver.
It’s simple: No advertisers, no Wrangler News.
Like a good Wrangler, please keep lassoing our content in print and online, and please support our advertisers.
