How to Grow an Online Audience

In an market where publishers are faced with the unenviable challenge of establishing and then growing an online presence, STACK Media has recently demonstrated it is up to the task. ComScore Media Metrix named this multimedia sports brand the No. 1 online property to reach the young male demographic. And, with more than 3.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. in July 2008, STACK came in at the No. 10 spot on comScore's list of Top Sports Web Properties, surpassing NBA.com and Nascar.com

STACK Media's rapid online ascent reflects increasing fragmentation of the Internet and a significant market shift in the consumption of content today, says Nick Palazzo, co-founder and co-CEO of STACK Media. Palazzo and Chad Zimmerman, both former high school and college athletes, created this resource to provide training information to millions of high school athletes in more than 7,000 schools. The STACK franchise includes STACK.com, STACK Magazine, MySTACK, STACK TV and STACK Events.

Publishing Executive Inbox spoke with Palazzo about how STACK grew its online audience and how other publishers can do the same.

Inbox: What did STACK do to grow its online audience, in turn, securing a spot on comScore's list of Top Sports Web Properties?
Nick Palazzo: We deployed a distributed media strategy and launched STACK Media, which brings together STACK proprietary content with related market-leading sites, including high-profile sports retailer Eastbay.com. The benefit of the distributed media strategy is that it provides marketers the largest reach against a very targeted demographic of young males with STACK unique sports content.

Inbox: How can publishers convince readers of print to get on board with online media?
Palazzo: The conversion between print and online media involves providing different products or services. The days of just repurposing articles from print to online are over. Publishers need to take advantage of the online platform through video, social networking and user-based interactions with content. At STACK, our online strategy is based on creating unique sports video content.

Inbox: Are the demographics of readers important for publishers to consider when growing their online audience?
Palazzo: Absolutely. A publisher needs to understand what its demographic is doing online or even if they are spending a lot of time online. In STACK's case, we know that our demographic is the most rabid consumer of online video. So, our online content strategy, as mentioned earlier, is all about creating unique video content and distributing the content through STACK Media.