10,000 or 100,000 which do you prefer?

Each month we produce around 10,000 printed copies of the Ontario Construction Report along with our regional papers the GTA Construction Report and Ottawa Construction News. Since 2007 when I started with the company the printed circulation has remained the same, however in the Fall of 2008 I had increased our monthly circulation by several thousand without printing one extra copy.

How did this happen? Welcome to the age of online editions of newspapers and magazines.

I was able to find an inexpensive page turning program online that had allowed me to meet one of my goal of increased circulation without increased costs. At first the technology was not appreciated by all, but like sending an email for the first time ever, using the online edition became very easy to do.

Now the Ontario Construction Report has readers in the US and across Canada. Companies with head offices in different provinces can now reach the papers and keep their finger on the pulse of the construction industry in Ontario. US based companies can also see how the better half are doing, especially for residential construction.

New products have started to be developed like the Design and Construction Report Magazine serving the US and the DCN Group established on Linked in. 90% of the publication reaches readers electronically but those who still want hard copies get them. What has separated us from the other start ups of online only publications is our solid foot hold in the printed real world where people can still touch, turn and get blank ink on their fingers. We have grown without sacrificing any of our existing circulation.

What lies ahead now for the Construction News and Report Group of Papers? How about taking the monthly readership from 10,000 of the printed edition to over 100,000 readers? In the next month you will see a new relationship that has been established to market our existing publications to over 100,000 readers each month. Taking the Ontario Construction Report to become a national publication.

Now here is where the fun starts. With the new 100,000 readers I can take the online edition of our paper one step further with the addition of an online exclusive section of the paper with content not available in our papers. The online product has been evolving fast and now we will have 100,000 new readers to showcase your products, services and companies to. Talk about reaching potential customers on a national and even continental basis, across Canada and the US.