So let’s talk a little bit about maps, printed maps. Do they still have value these days?
Printed maps, they are still a thing in 2023, but it kind of depends on your community. Often, Realtors enjoy using the maps and accommodations as well. Hotels enjoy providing maps to their guests. They can, kind of say, okay, you’re going to go from here, then you’re going to go visit there. They can draw it on the map for them. And a real estate person can do the same thing. We can certainly do a Google map, but it challenging to see many location on our phone. But a printed map gives you an overall picture in a big format. Yes, it is old school.
Tourism communities do produce maps still, and they’re still a viable thing in tourism communities, because, again, people want to have a quick snapshot of where they’re going to go, less and less so, because still we’re moving to more digital environment. But you know, it is surprising. Printed maps, still are used, and they can generate a substantial amount of non dues revenue and profit to the chamber. Because it’s only one sheet of paper to print, it’s a fixed cost. And the more ads you can put on the map, the more money drops to the bottom line. So compared to a magazine or a guide publication, where you have all these different pages, and you have to put in all this different content. But a map is a map, just one sheet of paper, more ads, more profit. It’s pretty straightforward.
Do you see many folks combine a map with another publication?
Maps still have value. If you include a map inside your publication, I wouldn’t say it’s easily monetized. But keeping the publications separate, say do a map for the summer and a Guide for the winter, then they both can be monetized separately and can generate both substantial profit and non dues revenue for a chamber.
Well, an interesting thought about staggering if your community can support both things you know, with the distribution and with the advertising offsetting them, so that you might be getting ad dollars from your members two times a year instead of just one,
Staggering a map and annual publication of some sort is a great way to increase the advertising dollars from your members. Again, there must be a strong value proposition, I’ve seen accountants advertise on maps. Why would an accountant want to advertise on a map? I don’t know, but that accountant saw the value of being visible on that map, probably because that map was being distributed to the residents. Do residents need a map? Arguable. It depends on your community. Again, it goes back to understanding what the purpose is, what the reason is for producing a map? What’s the compelling reason? Who’s the audience? How’s it going to get there? Answering all those questions gives you a strong sales message, which will attract businesses to participate on a map.
