Steve Engelhart provided an introductory talk about his life experiences, the growth of online readership and the changing world of advertising.
Steve Engelhart was born in St. Paul in 1961, moved to Burnsville in 1968, got married to Lynn in 1990 and moved to Lakeville, where they raised their three children, Lauren (25), Emily (23) and Michael (20). Steve and Lynn moved to Bass Lake last year, to property owned by Steve’s family. They are now living in a year-round cabin, but looking for a builder to do a tear-down and build of a new home. Steve and Lynn love to travel and have visited Italy, Ireland, Spain and much of the United States. Steve and his son also enjoy snowmobiling, and take annual trips to the Upper Peninsula. That said, Steve also loves being home on Bass Lake, including cruises on his pontoon and waterskiing!

Steve’s career started at the Sun Current, a weekly newspaper in the Burnsville area. He subsequently spent 19 years at the Pioneer Press, working in nearly every area of sales, and five years at the Start Tribune, primarily in the automotive and real estate areas. When Steve Gall, Publisher of RiverTowns, contacted Steve about an opportunity with them as Advertising Director, he was excited – both about the job, and about the opportunity to move to the lake!

RiverTowns Multimedia www.rivertowns.net, part of the Forum Communications Company www.forumcomm.com, is much more than the publisher of weekly print newspapers. Their websites focus on hyper-local news in more than 40 markets in the Upper Midwest. They offer a full suite of digital projects, free design services, Google certified ad operations, etc.

RiverTowns Multimedia is made up of 17 weekly publications and 11 websites. Their monthly reach is just under 2 million readers. In western Wisconsin, they cover the areas in and around New Richmond, Hudson, River Falls, Ellsworth and Prescott. They publish not only the weekly print newspapers, but also the weekly “shoppers” and several other targeted publications, including a monthly boating magazine called Scuttlebutt. They also work with clients on custom publications. As an example, they recently did the piece covering the opening of the UW River Falls Falcon Center. Looking for video production? They do that, too, and even have FAA certified drone pilots to get aerial video footage for your business.

One of the services they provide to online customers is search engine optimization. Steve noted that if you are the first listing in response to a Google search, you will have a 32% click-through rate; the second listing has just 14% and the third listing has just 9%. Steve and his team will work with you to get you closer to the top of the list. “Geofencing” is another service they offer. As an example, you can “geofence” around a soccer field, so that your ad shows up for those using their phones at events at that location, then create ads targeting that demographic.

In response to a question about print vs online readership, Steve confirmed that while print readership is going down, online readership – especially mobile readership – is rapidly growing. Steve noted that it’s not necessarily that people are stopping reading the print edition, but that they are also accessing news online. Steve also acknowledged that revenue sources have shifted dramatically; as an example, print employment ad revenue was once a “cash cow,” but most of that is now online.