As the lines are blurring between content marketing online magazines and traditional newspapers and magazines, we’re finding great success in positioning our one of our online magazines as media sponsors.
Content marketing online magazines competing with the “big boys”? Sure. Why not? Especially when our online reach is comparable to, if not exceeds, traditional media outlets.
Before I came on board at Urbane Media, The Urbane Life (http://theurbanelife.com) provided a ton of press coverage as a media sponsor for a local PBS program that I handled new media and media relations for, “Dining in the D.” From the show’s point of view, it was a gold mine for us on several levels. We were able to position the show and showcase many of the featured restaurants through stories written by credible food and restaurant writers. Banner ads on The Urbane Life site also drove a lot of traffic back to the show’s site. Plus, story links gave us a lot of great content to share on our Facebook page and Twitter account. The social media reach was further widened by The Urbane Life’s social media outreach. It was a win-win for both of us and the earned media value for “Dining in the D” was easily in the thousands of dollars.
Now as editor of The Urbane Media and Paragon Life, I have seen the benefits of being a media sponsor in two recent events we were involved in: the Ferndale Blues & Music Festival and the Motown Winter Blast. Both events gave our writers more choices than they needed to cover stories on 
restaurants, bands and people that were timely, topical and of interest to our readers, not to mention that we were able to amp up the social media shareability factor with the event promoters, restaurants, bars, companies, bands, people and organizations associated with those events. Tickets, passes and other giveaways further gave us something of tangible value that we could share with our readers through Facebook giveaways. Plus, getting our name, logo and links out on things like links on event websites, printed programs, and banners at the events were more than worth it in trade.
Needless to say, media sponsorships are a high priority for us in 2012.
Bonnie Caprara
Bonnie Caprara is an editor, writer and media relations specialist at Urbane Media. Her career has traversed between print journalism and media relations in the agency world and for private clients. She's also a semi-serious foodie with a penchant for Cheetos.
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