BETHLEHEM — Spotlight News and its sister company, Eagle News in the Syracuse area, have launched SpotOnDigital, a branch of the company focused on delivering digital marketing services to small- and medium-sized businesses in Central New York and the Capital Region.
SpotOnDigital is spearheaded by Stefanie Markiewicz, who joined the company after spending seven years with a digital advertising agency in the Capital District. Markiewicz works with existing Spotlight and Eagle personnel to manage digital and print advertising campaigns.
“When the pandemic began, we realized we needed to be able to provide our advertising customers with a broader range of digital products and services to take advantage of the multiple digital channels today’s consumer uses,” said David Tyler, publisher of Eagle News. “Stefanie’s expertise in these areas dramatically enhances our ability to fulfill more of our customers’ marketing needs.”
Spotlight News operates the weekly newspapers The Spotlight, The Colonie Spotlight and The Spot 518 and Capital District Family Now magazine.
Eagle News has five community newspapers in the greater Syracuse area as well as a variety of specialty publications, including Syracuse Woman Magazine.
“We’ve always had a strong, local audience through our printed products – and that audience continues to grow,” John McIntyre, Publisher of Spotlight News said. “These services allow us to help our advertising clients reach an even wider audience through digital platforms that local consumers use every day.”
SpotOnDigital’s suite of advertising services are designed to cater to the needs of local businesses across a variety of platforms. These services include but are not limited to:
• Organic business page management – Managing business messaging and profiles on platforms including Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor Business and Yelp.
• Digital Display advertising – Exposing new audiences to your business through targeted campaigns across the Google display network and on eaglenewsonline.com and spotlightnews.com.
• Social media management – Increasing engagement with your existing followers and gaining new followers with Facebook boosted posts and driving more website traffic and increasing leads with targeted Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns.
• Paid search – Paid search campaigns capture more website traffic and increase leads by allowing a client’s advertising and profile to be shown to anyone searching for topics relating to that business in that client’s target market.
• Email marketing – Alerting audiences to sales, specials and announcements by running ads through a weekly email newsletter to thousands of local subscribers, and sending email blasts to targeted opt-in email lists demographically and geographically sorted to directly target potential customers.
• Google My Business – Google My Business page posts ensure those who already know about a business to stay up-to-date on current sales, specials and announcements.
• Print advertising – Maintaining a consistent message across all platforms is important to successful advertising. Digital advertising packages will also include discounted rates on print advertising and niche publications.
“It is important that smaller businesses utilize these services because they are effective ways of maximizing audiences and growing sales while maintaining a budget-friendly advertising plan,” Markiewicz said.
A 2016 survey of small businesses that used digital marketing platforms showed that 63% of these businesses spend between six and 11 hours per week managing their digital marketing. For many, those hours have likely grown as additional digital platforms have arisen, making the time burden overwhelming.
These services are designed to increase a client’s return on investment while giving them the time back to focus on managing their business.
And for those who are not yet marketing their businesses on these digital platforms, they have a trusted local resource who can help them navigate the ever-changing digital marketplace.
“Ignoring your digital audience is like working out without changing your eating habits. You may see some small results but until you start eating healthy, nothing is really going to change,” Markiewicz said. “Ensuring that your business has an accurate and maintained digital presence will help grow your opportunities exponentially.”
