Raising awareness for a political or advocacy issue can be achieved through a wide variety of marketing strategies. By definition, advocacy advertising is the use of marketing to support a particular message or cause. While calling and engaging with your network of supporters, advertising on local television and making countless public appearances are all manners in which to reach target organizations and voters, don’t discount the effectiveness of your local newspaper.

A few months ago, the Times Union’s editor, Casey Seiler, wrote a piece highlighting the impact of the newspaper on the local community. While the Times Union exists in part to inform and to entertain, above all, the paper is designed to have impact. In Casey’s words, the paper is supposed to “be a force for bringing to light misbehavior by the powerful, tell the stories of society’s most vulnerable, and track the public conversation on the best way to achieve change.”

For organizations running political and advocacy campaigns, a newspaper that strives to craft stories of impact can be an invaluable partner. When it comes to reaching affluent, engaged Capital Region voters and decision makers, the Times Union provides its partners with accurate data on circulation and reader demographics to help organizations make informed decisions to drive the greatest ad impact.

Our proprietary audience data has shown that:

• Newspaper readers vote and are active contributors to campaign funding.
• In one week, the Times Union reaches more than 42% of all Capital Region adults who contributed to a political or social welfare organization in the past 12 months.
• Nearly 93% of the Times Union’s weekly readers are registered to vote in their county of residence.

While the Times Union’s audience is actively engaged with our community, we can foster additional action through strategic marketing efforts. Our team of advocacy advertising experts will create, customize and implement an integrated campaign guaranteed to reach pertinent organizations, lobbyists and voters, regardless of party affiliation. As the modern consumer ingests news and information in increasing quantities online through various sources and platforms, digital marketing channels are used frequently and in tandem with traditional marketing channels to amplify advocacy efforts.

While digital advertising for political and advocacy campaigns is both popular and effective, research shows that there are ways to complement your digital marketing with print. We suggest:

• Ensuring messaging is consistent with digital and print
• Including social media reviews in print
• Using calls-to-action on print materials
• Placing QR codes on print materials
• Including campaign hashtags on print

Creating a holistic marketing strategy that engages consumers and readers both in print and online can boost engagement and increase campaign success. This includes teaming up with your local, leading news source that has an impressive track record of driving change.

Every day, the Times Union publishes stories and features that reach a community of readers poised to make decisions. Through our print publications, our exclusive online content, an array of e-newsletters that feature unique content offerings, social media platforms and apps and podcasts designed to alert citizens on important and breaking news, the Times Union provides our advertisers with a complete package to reach their target audience.

We’re here to help your organization formulate an effective strategy that can promote your cause and in turn help your organization, the community and those residing in it. Get in touch with us today to learn more.

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