We should always be planting the seed that digital can and should be part of any advertising strategy, along with print

Katelyn Mary Skaggs

Aug 1, 2025

Every marketing or sales piece we put in front of a client should include a digital add-on. If we are asking clients to spend money on a print ad, we should also be offering a way for them to reach people online, as well. Not every client will say yes, and that’s OK, but not offering it at all is a missed opportunity.

Digital advertising can feel overwhelming or confusing to some of our traditional print advertisers, so making it easy and bundled with something they already understand helps bring them along to try something new. When we added a simple Facebook ad post option to one of our special section flyers, we didn’t expect to sell more than one or two, but 10 clients who had never done any digital advertising with us before added on a Facebook ad to print ads. I was shocked, but thrilled.

I am working to train our sales team that they should never walk into a meeting without a digital offering in their back pocket. We should always be planting the seed that digital can and should be part of any advertising strategy, along with print. If you are putting together a flyer for a special section, a seasonal promotion or an upcoming event, take a few extra minutes and build a digital option into the pricing or as an add on. You never know who will say yes.

Now, digital advertising should not be free. It is not a thank you gift for buying print. It is not a reward or a nice extra. It has value, and we need to treat it that way.

Too often, I see newspapers give digital ads away for free as part of a print bundle. That sends a message to our clients that the digital part doesn’t really have a ton of value, like our print ads. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Running digital ads on your website does cost something, even if it is not a direct out-of-pocket cost like printing. It costs time and resources to run and maintain a website. Our digital products have value, and they deliver real results for our clients. They should be priced accordingly.

Just because you can easily upload a digital ad does not mean it is free. You would not give away a print ad because it was easy to lay out. The same thinking needs to apply to digital.

We charge $9 CPM (cost per thousand) for our website ads, and our starting price for a Facebook ad is $150.

We are the ones who educate our clients and show them what our products are worth. And if we’re not pricing digital ads fairly, then we’re telling them that they aren’t worth much.

I want clients to value what we offer. I want them to understand that print still works, and digital adds another layer. I want them to see that our newspaper’s website is not just a backup to the print edition. It is its own product, with its own audience, and its own set of results.

Let’s keep making digital part of the conversation. Let’s put it on every sales flyer. Let’s talk about it in every sales meeting.

The next time you are building a promotion, start by asking yourself, “What is the digital option here?” It could be a Facebook ad, a run-of-site banner or an email newsletter sponsorship. Whatever it is, price it fairly and clearly, and make sure your sales team understands how to talk about it.

Digital is not going anywhere and neither is print. The sooner we treat digital ads like the valuable product it is, the better off our clients and our newspapers will be.

Katelyn Mary Skaggs is the digital marketing manager for Leader Publications, a group of four papers in Festus, Missouri. Skaggs, a Southeast Missouri State University graduate, joined their ranks in January 2019 as a reporter. Email katelynmaryskaggs@leaderpublications.biz