e-Connect Program Overview

New York, NY –- Metro Creative Graphics, the nation's leading supplier of creative content and revenue-generating tools to the publishing industry, continues its tradition of innovation with the launch of Metro e-Connect. This complete, ready-to-implement, multi-platform advertising suite enhances the ability of publications to compete for advertising dollars and audiences by empowering advertisers to connect more effectively with their target consumers.

Metro e-Connect includes three major elements — Online e-Sections, Specialty Websites and Marketplace Connection — that work together to put advertisers' messages everywhere their target customers are looking for the products or services their businesses have to offer.

• Online e-Sections — Themed, targeted sections that are co-branded with a publication's logo and information and can be customized to include local features, videos and photo galleries. Topics, which range from Weddings, Home, Healthy Lifestyle, Breast Cancer Awareness, Holiday Gift Guide, School Year and many more, are synced to Metro's print Templated Special Sections, making it easier than ever to sell coordinated print and online ads. All e-Sections feature five key ad positions on each page, plus additional upsell potential with photo galleries, videos and special offers. Most notably, e-Section ads can link to advertisers' websites or to their Specialty Website, the second element of Metro e-Connect.
• Specialty Websites — flexible, easy-to-customize sites that offer various upsell opportunities for advertisers with options for including and updating videos, photos, special offers, product or service details, locations, hours and mapping features — are highly effective vehicles for both introducing consumers to advertisers' businesses and promoting their latest and greatest offerings. These sites are designed not only to engage consumers and motivate them toward making purchases, but to enhance the image of the business, create customer loyalty and promote specific or seasonal products or services. Specialty Websites can be updated in real-time, are mobile-friendly and can be shared via social media. Metro's e-Connect Specialty Websites are programmed for optimal recognition from all search engines with their multi-page, full website designs. Specialty Websites can also be used to create sites for special events, malls and so much more!
• Marketplace Connection — Having dynamic e-Sections on a site is critical for expanding online audience and ad sales. But promoting e-Sections so that people know they are there, and advertisers get the results they are looking for, relies on promotional efforts. With this in mind, we include a bonus e-Section called Marketplace Connection in the e-Connect package. This "digital billboard" for local consumers is where publishers can present and promote advertisers, e-Sections, Specialty Websites, special offers, timely photo galleries and videos in any combination while offering them a wide range of upsell opportunities. Every time consumers visit the bonus Marketplace Connection e-Section on a publisher's site, they can peruse and take advantage of the full range of resources and offers available in a publisher's market area.

"Our goal was to give publications a highly marketable program that allows them to provide their advertisers with an integrated, flexible, cost-effective print, online and mobile advertising solution for connecting with consumers who are ready to buy," notes Debra Shapiro Weiss, Executive Vice President of Metro. "In short, we're giving publications the ability to tell their customers, 'We can do it all.'"

At the heart of e-Connect is Metro's QRsite Content Management System (CMS), a fun, user-friendly interface for entering/uploading advertiser information and, with just a few button clicks, applying that information to any or all of the three e- Connect components. The QRsite CMS automatically generates a QR code for every e-Section, Specialty Website and Marketplace page and simplifies the process of tracking/managing all e-Connect offerings.

Metro e-Connect also offers valuable opportunities to link online and mobile advertising with print products and makes it simple for publications to sell themed multimedia promotional packages that include print ads — with or without QR codes — along with placement in e-Sections, Specialty Websites and Marketplace Connection.

Robert Zimmerman, Metro's President and CEO, notes that, "In today's rapidly changing environment, publications—and newspapers in particular—need to be able to go out into the marketplace and prove that they have full-scale solutions for their customers' marketing and advertising needs. While newspapers have always been expert at knowing their markets and their customers and communities, e-Connect gives them the resources to help advertisers reach the right audience at the right time via the right media."

For more information about Metro e-Connect or the Metro Family of Services, contact 800-223-1600 or service@metro-email.com.