A human mind is born inquisitive, and it is a healthy sign if an individual keeps the curiosity alive as life gets busy with several day-to-day activities. Even since the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, mankind has been depending on newspapers to feed its burning spirit of inquiry. A vast majority of people from all over the world have the habit of starting their days with a morning newspaper.
Changing trends in newspaper making
Today, after about six centuries, newspapers are still a significant medium of mass communication. But, the material and mode of delivery have changed altogether. Instead of printed papers delivered by bright little boys, today we receive our daily dose of news updates delivered on our mobile phones.
Technology has simplified not just the process of creating a newspaper but also delivering it to more readers. Online newspapers provide the following advantages when compared with conventional newspapers.
- Designing and creating a newspaper is so much easier with online tools. You can select a ready-made template and quickly add content and images according to your needs.
- The cost of starting an online newspaper is almost nil, whereas, in printed newspapers, there are several costs such as raw material, labor, distribution, etc.
- Marketing a newspaper becomes so much easier when it is online. There are several digital marketing options such as social media, search engine advertisements, websites, etc. In e-newspapers, the cost of catering to additional readers goes on decreasing with scale.
- During the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, many parts of the world experienced a disruption in the distribution of physical newspapers. In such scenarios, online newspapers come to the rescue and help you to stay connected with your readers.
- E-newspapers are eco-friendly when compared to printed hardcopies. It is high time we take every possible action towards a sustainable future. Opting for an online newspaper can significantly contribute to stop deforestation and check global warming.
- Securing advertisers for an online newspaper is comparatively easier. You don’t have to contact every potential advertiser. Innovative options such as Google AdSense make revenue generation simple and quick.
- Selling subscriptions and collecting payments can be done fast and secure in online newspapers. Most importantly, you don’t have to pay middlemen for the distribution of copies. Your newspaper will be delivered directly to your readers’ inboxes, or it can be accessed via the world wide web.
Why should you create your own newspaper?
Gone are the days when only news agencies published their newspapers. Today, newspapers are used by any person or organization that wants to regularly connect with their target audience. Here are some example use cases for starting your own newspaper:
- Businesses who want to send industry updates and promotional material to their customers can benefit greatly from newspapers. Even a short newsletter consisting of a few pages can help in staying in the customer’s memory.
- You can create newspapers for your school or college. This will give a medium for students to showcase their artistic talents. College newspapers can also act as a communication channel to mobilize fellow students for a common cause.
- Event-based newspapers are gaining popularity recently. It can be any event such as a meet-up, a rally, or even a personal event like a wedding. When you organize such an event, you can publish a weekly newspaper and send it to registered and prospective participants. This will help your participants to gain knowledge and warm them up before they attend the actual event.
- A neighborhood newsletter is a great idea. If you are active in your locality and know details peculiar to your neighborhood, then you can share your local knowledge with other residents through an online newspaper. Your newspaper can include interviews of residents, public works happening currently, and advertisements of local shops, among other things.
- For any organization, it is important to keep all its employees on the same page. Company culture, work ethics, and values should be the same across the hierarchies. To achieve this, a monthly online newspaper can be of great help. Encouraging employees to write newspaper articles is an excellent way of engaging with your staff.
- If you are a subject-matter expert in a niche domain, you can monetize your expertise by publishing an online newspaper. You can build a strong reader network that can get you business opportunities. You can also generate some extra income from publishing advertisements in your newspaper.
Newspaper template tools
There are numerous options to build your online newspaper. Several websites provide free newspaper templates that you can edit and customize. We have listed a few tools for your reference here.
Flipsnack
Image taken from Flipsnack website
This website offers a host of editable newspaper templates for almost every newspaper format ranging from full-fledged magazines to college newsletters. The templates have been designed to suit different industries like health, fashion, etc.
MakeMyNewspaper
Image taken from MakeMyNewspaper website
This is a US-based newspaper printing and e-newspaper publishing house. They provide newspaper layouts for both online and printed versions. While you can host your online newspapers on the cloud, printing can also be carried out if required. The ability to filter templates by category and page size is a beneficial tool while shortlisting the templates. FAQs and step-by-step tutorials make it easy for even beginners.
PosterMyWall
Image taken from PosterMyWall website
PosterMyWall is a storehouse of templates for any digital content. Ranging from digital banners to invitation cards, you can design anything here. The collection includes newsletter templates too. All the templates are customizable and can be modified using the in-site editor.
Create your own newspaper with Strikingly
We hope you would have an idea about how to make a newspaper from the above template tools. Using these, you can design and create PDFs or JPEGs of newspapers according to your needs. But, you may still be worried about how to host your newspaper online, market, and distribute it periodically. Strikingly provides you a simple yet powerful platform to host your online newspaper and deliver to it a vast population.
Strikingly is a free web hosting platform that you can use for launching any kind of website, including a news website. You can find several suitable templates in our repository for building a newspaper platform. Select the right one for you and start editing. You can update the contents of your website and launch it within thirty minutes.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
In Strikingly, you have two channels of newspaper delivery. One is publishing your newspaper with a unique URL every month/week, depending on the frequency of your newspaper. You can also add a neat catalog with dates of issue and thumbnail pictures. This will help your readers browse through different issues and open the one they want to read.
The second option to deliver your newspaper is by email. Strikingly enables you to send it directly to the user’s inbox. You can collect your website visitors’ email addresses using a pop-up form for newsletter opt-ins. Every time a new issue is ready, you can send the newspaper as a PDF or weblink to your reader. Strikingly helps you to send this from a custom domain email address in bulk with a single click.
Image taken from Strikingly website
Marketing your newspaper becomes simple when you host it on Strikingly. You can integrate your social media accounts with your website and achieve a synergistic benefit. This means you can increase the traffic on both your website and social media pages. Incorporating social media feeds from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn is one way of integration, while the other way is to provide share or like buttons at the footer.
When you have a web hosting partner like Strikingly, securing funds and advertisements becomes easy. You can implement Google AdSense in your newspaper website in a few simple steps. Once your AdSense integration is done, your users will start seeing relevant advertisements whenever they visit the website or any newspaper article on your website. Irrespective of the newspaper article template you have chosen, you can insert the AdSense code in the required locations without any hassle. Besides, Strikingly allows you to add your own custom advertisements too. You can add them as buttons with images and links. On clicking the image of the ad, the user will be taken to the relevant external or internal link.
Strikingly’s membership feature enables you to sell online subscriptions to your newspaper. You can receive online payment through any channel like PayPal, Stripe, AliPay, etc.
Monitoring the readership and circulation is critical to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your newspaper venture. Strikingly provides powerful analytical tools to track and analyze your website traffic. You can get details of your subscribers and even one-time visitors.
Newspapers are here to stay
The look and feel, delivery channel, and layouts may change over time. But, newspapers are evergreen. Despite the rising number of social media users, the importance of newspapers is still intact. Launch your newspaper on Strikingly today, and harness the power of words.
