Our local newspaper is the weekly Craven Herald. It has a circulation of almost 14,000, which gives it a readership of approximately 35,000 local people. Given that Craven’s population is around 55,000 inhabitants, this equates to the Herald being read by more than half of all local people.

Whatever the future of publishing, local newspapers will continue to be in demand in off and online formats simply because they are the primary outlet for community news. People like to know how their rates are being spent, how the local economy is doing, what’s happening in the high street, at school, at their sports centre or within their church, sports and/or hobby club and at their local. They want to know what charity the brownies/scouts are helping or what the district’s service organisations are doing to raise funds for the local hospice. They like to see people rewarded for such efforts.

They also like to know who’s died, who’s had a baby, got engaged or married or had a special birthday or wedding anniversary to celebrate. They enjoy seeing photographs of friends, family and acquaintances in the paper. Local newspapers are important to people on many levels. They are well read and appreciated. They have significant community impact.

It is important that the fabl, as a relative newcomer to Craven, uses the Herald to help establish itself – to build awareness of its name, what it offers and its ethos. It is important because:

• Coverage in the Herald may help make its neighbours on Broughton Business Park its next clients. There’s a growing movement for local businesses to support one another but to buy into the offering of a local firm, people need to know about it first.
• It can extend the fabl’s reach to companies in Leeds, Bradford and other areas – Craven is prime commuter belt for such cities and what better if you live in Craven but work in one of these places than using a company on your doorstep. You can schedule the fabl meetings first thing in the morning or in the afternoon to miss peak traffic times and make your day better. Using the the fabl can save you the expense and time of journeying to agencies in London, Manchester etc if the fabl can match/exceed the offerings of these city agencies. Targeting the Herald with The fabl information is a means to make the Craven-based decision makers who commute for their work the fabl conscious.
• It can extend The fabl’s reach nationwide. The Herald, like all local newspapers nowadays, is part of a large group of papers with a syndications department. The syndications department, as an additional group revenue source, now sells a newspaper’s stories to the nationals to earn themselves some extra money. It’s in local newspapers’ interest to sell on as many stories as they can because it’s money at the end of the day. Also, what appears in the local newspaper also often re-appears on local TV news and is heard on local radio news.
• It can help build confidence in the fabl – the Heralds hosts its own well-respected annual business awards. To win or be commended is good for bringing in clients and for attracting high calibre future staff.
• It can help win the fabl support – the fabl is hosting an Easter egg hunt for employees on Broughton Business Park to raise money for Whizz Kidz. As part of the effort, it is selling raffle tickets and Miles and Hazel are planning a day of canvassing local businesses for prizes. It makes their job easier if people within these companies have heard of the fabl and know something about the company.
• It can help the fabl’s online visability. Local news sites are a brilliant way to boost your own visibility on Google. By achieving brand mentions on the Craven Herald’s website our company can be seen by Google to be active, newsworthy and inevitably worth looking at within the search engine’s results pages.

In summary, targeting the Herald with the fabl information costs very little but potentially, is worth a great deal.