Offer affiliate programs for your print edition and other paid services

While the advice on this website most often is restricted to online tips, here’s one to help the print edition of your newspaper. You’ll accomplish it with an online program.

Here’s what you do: Set up an affiliate program that other website owners and bloggers can sign up for, where they market your print subscriptions on their sites in exchange for a decent commission when a sale is made. They’ll post ready-made banner ads on their sites, and you’ll gain some new print subscribers.

Now affiliate programs have been around for a long time, but you don’t often see them offered by newspaper websites. I’m not sure why that is, but they’re useful tools for bringing in new print subscribers at low cost.

Of course, if your website has any paid services, you can use the affiliate program to promote sales of those, too.

Count this as one of the least innovative bits of advice presented here. But affiliate programs have a long record of success. News companies have mostly missed out. Perhaps it’s time they take a more serious look.

There are plenty of companies offering affiliate programs; the largest is Commission Junction. Here’s a list of them.