Own Your Town's Local News and Digital Marketing Platform
Original Local News Reporting. Help Local Businesses Thrive. Build Your Own Local Media Business.
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U.S. communities have lost their local newspaper or news site.
The opportunity
When a town loses its local newspaper or news site, it loses more than headlines. School board decisions go uncovered. Small businesses lose the one place that told their stories. The town gets quieter, and not in a good way.
That gap is real in more than 1,800 communities, and someone has to fill it. TAPinto owner/publishers are. They report the news their neighbors actually read, and work with their local businesses to help them with their marketing needs. The result is a local media business that serves the town and is financially sustainable and yes, profitable.
Why the model works
Of TAPinto marketing partners renew or expand their marketing. Recurring revenue you can build upon.
Of readers have bought from a TAPinto advertiser. Your advertising works, which is why advertisers come back.
Of U.S. adults prefer to get local news online rather than in print. Your audience is already looking for what you publish.
Spent on digital advertising in the U.S. last year. A growing budget your local businesses want to spend close to home.
What you own
You are awarded a protected territory that is yours to run. Inside it, you own both the local news coverage and the marketing relationships with the businesses in your community.
You run it from home. No storefront, no inventory, no buildout.
More than 80% of TAPinto advertisers renew or expand.
The community you are awarded is yours. You build the audience, the relationships, and the value, and that value is yours to keep and should you ever wish to, sell.
With the services and support TAPinto provides to you, you can run efficiently and effectively. And if you want to expand to own more communities in the future, you can do so and scale on your terms.
The partnership
You're never on your own. While you focus on serving your community, TAPinto manages the behind-the-scenes operations and gives you access to the knowledge, support, and proven best practices of a collaborative network of nearly 100 fellow local news owner/publishers.
Your site is built, mobile-ready, and live on day one. You publish a story or place an ad in a few clicks. No code, no design work, no hosting headaches.
You get hands-on training before opening and ongoing coaching after.
Full-time developers and a customer service team handle the technical and operational questions as they come up, so you are never stuck mid-task.
A menu of marketing options ranging from traditional advertising to branded content to email marketing to social media marketing and more, priced for businesses of every size, so you can help any business in your community.
TAPinto places the ads and bills your clients for you. You focus on the relationships. The back office runs itself.
The network advantage
With roughly 90 owners running sites across more than 150 towns, you can seamlessly sell advertising to businesses in your town onto other TAPinto sites and vice versa. You also can receive regional advertising that no standalone local site could land on its own. The platform’s revenue splits are built to reward collaboration.
Proof
In just my first year of owning and operating TAPinto Wayne, I finished the year profitable and with my site generating close to 100,000 pageviews per month. TAPinto Wayne has already become a household name and franchising with TAPinto has been the best decision I’ve made.
“A lot of thought went into my decision to franchise TAPinto. I felt there was a real void in local daily news. South Plainfield only had a weekly print paper and there was little coverage of those things that affect the community. TAPinto represented the opportunity to jump into a business that made sense while filling this news void for our town.”
“In some way my entire career has focused on creating and implementing communications strategies for my employers and clients. The opportunity to take that in a new direction, developing and delivering appealing content through an already known and respected platform was too good to pass up.”
“As a journalist, I had never sold an ad before I started this job. That’s both a strength and a weakness, I think. No one ever taught me how to sell, and as a result I don’t make the same age-old mistakes a lot of sales people make. I don’t try to force something to work if it doesn’t. I customize everything to work best for the advertiser.”
Honest fit
The investment
Most franchisors make you sit through several calls before they show you the investment. We would rather you have them now.
Depending on the size of your territory, you may add a freelance, part-time, or full-time reporter, and a part-time or full-time salesperson. Many owners start solo and can add help as they wish as revenue grows.
Next steps
Join a live webinar. No commitment, no pressure. You will see the platform and hear how the business actually runs.
Book a call and talk about territory, numbers, timing and more.
Speak with owners already running TAPinto sites. You can contact them directly or reach out to us and we will connect you.
