Awards Archives - Post and Courier Advertising

Post and Courier wins Top Honors from S.C. Press Association 2022 News Contest

Posted on March 20, 2023 | by Post and Courier Staff

Congratulations to the Post and Courier team for earning top honors in the S.C. Press Association’s 2022 News Contest! For the third year in a row, Post and Courier photographer Andrew J. Whitaker carries the title of the Photojournalist of the Year. His riveting images captured the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Recognition Day at The Citadel, and also the aftermath of floodwaters in downtown Charleston. The former photograph won Whitaker first place in the Spot News Photo category.

Latasha Grant steps over a flood fence at the entrance of Green Grocery after rain and a high tide caused flooding in downtown Charleston on Sept. 9, 2022. Andrew J. Whitaker

“To be awarded Photojournalist of the Year is an honor, to be named three consecutive years is special,” Visuals Editor Matthew Fortner said.

Andrew J. Whitaker By Grace Beahm Alford gbeahm@postandcourier.com

Our chief investigative reporter in Columbia, Avery Wilks, was named South Carolina’s Journalist of the Year. As the lead reporter on the Murdaugh murders saga, Wilks also handled the coverage of South Carolinians charged in the connection with the assault on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. His investigative stories also brought to light various financial crimes across the state.

“Avery functions best in a whirlwind of activity that sometimes makes him appear to be everywhere at once — at least where South Carolina’s biggest stories are concerned,” Watchdog and Public Service Team Editor Glenn Smith said. “He is one of the most tenacious, focused and productive reporters that you will find anywhere.”

Avery Wilks, investigative reporter for The Post and Courier

Another Post and Courier top honor goes to Tony Bartelme – our three-decade veteran who is the lead reporter on the Watchdog and Public Service Team. Bartelme received the Jay Bender Award for Assertive Journalism. His relentless investigation uncovered a hushed rape allegation against a powerful sheriff in Sumter County, and a codependent relationship between a pharma company and a state regulator.

“These are just a few of the stories that demonstrate Tony’s dogged and relentless drive to expose injustices, give voice to the powerless, and hold officials accountable for their actions,” Smith said.

Among other individual accolades, Post and Courier won first place in Innovation for the South Carolina Schools Explorer – our interactive, easy-to-use online tool that measures the performance of every K-12 public school in South Carolina.

Our staff was also awarded first place in the Reporting-in-Depth category for our Safety Off series highlighting the rampant gun violence in the Lowcountry area.

See the rest of the awards Post and Courier team received from the S.C. Press Association.

Google News Initiative Case Study Learnings

Posted on June 14, 2022 | by

In July of 2021, The Post and Courier began work on a project in conjunction with Google News Initiative (GNI). The purpose of the collaboration was to explore the efficacy of paid newsletters as a viable growth strategy for the news organization. Could the paper create alternative revenue streams and increase its digital audience effectively with this new type of subscription model? And what would that entail?

About The Post and Courier’s vision

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier

It is worth noting that the Post and Courier has made a conscious effort to think forward. Where other traditional news organizations have shrunk, the newspaper has done quite the opposite. In 2021, The Post and Courier announced that it had grown its digital subscriber base to over 20,000. It’s also rapidly expanding, giving the paper a truly statewide reach with locations now in Charleston, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Greenville, Spartanburg, North Augusta and Hilton Head. The paper also recently doubled down on its commitment to print, building an all-new state-of-the-art printing press. The opportunity with GNI presented a chance to even further expand the brand.

As any marketer worth their salt knows, our engagement with media is constantly evolving. Wherever you look you can see the effects — whether that’s in Tik Tok being the most visited website of 2022, the advent of the Metaverse, or our consumption of movies and the surprising decline of Netflix subscriptions. To keep up with the times is imperative to be flexible and willing to experiment.

GNI Learnings

A example subscription ad for the newsletter The Tiger Take.

So in the summer of last year, The Post and Courier launched two newsletters built around collegiate athletics — The Tiger Take and Gamecocks Now. Both newsletters are subscription-based, meaning they require subscribers to pay. Gamecocks Now is written by a 20-year veteran of the beat— David Cloninger and The Tiger Take is written by Clemson newcomer, but veteran sports journalist— Jon Blau.

After seeing the success of the two sports newsletters, the paper launched the food newsletter, CHS Menu, (Charleston’s Menu) in late February of 2022. In partnership with GNI, The Post and Courier revealed a few of their findings. The main learnings were as such:

Leads

Lead growth is essential to subscriber growth. Before launching the sports newsletters there was a small number of leads. The Post and Courier had explored a free sports newsletter and used this niche audience to help grow its subscriber base. However, by placing more of an emphasis on growing the top of funnel, in 8 months the team was able to grow previous leads by 268%. These leads led to both subscriptions for the paper as well as subscriptions to the two paid newsletters.

ARPU

Make ARPU a key metric. At the initial launch of the Gamecocks Now and The Tiger Take existing PC subscribers were offered a highly discounted price point as a bundle offer. While this drove subscription numbers, it ended up drastically tanking ARPU. It also, due to the nature of the sale, led to a high percentage of churn. By increasing the price of the newsletter bundle and killing the previous offer the sports newsletters were able to increase ARPU by over 8%, while also combatting churn and increasing revenue.

Estimating Audience Size

The most important learning from the partnership with GNI was helping approximate potential audience size. GNI had previously provided the target of subscription numbers to be 1.5% of the monthly audience on the paper’s website. By using these numbers the sports newsletters are already 63% to goal in only 8 months! Using this data also helped assess a proper estimate for subscribers to the food newsletter as well as the paper itself.

Open Rates

Make open rates key! Before the Apple IOS update, the sports newsletters maintained well over 40% open rates. Especially for paid newsletters, this metric is crucial to success.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can read the case study: here.

How to Promote your Award-Winning Success

Posted on November 3, 2020 | by Peyton Riddle

Charleston’s Choice is the community-based award that customers use to show love and support for their favorite local businesses.

The Charleston community nominates and votes for the top businesses in a variety of categories. Then, business owners highlight their honors and give their businesses the extra boost that awards can provide.

Here in Charleston, customers are always on the lookout for Charleston’s Choice honors, as it shows a business is the best of the best. And this goes for all types of awards any business might be recognized for. Let your community know you’ve been recognized through these branding and promotional strategies.

Are you a business owner that has been nominated? This is how you can boost your honor!

Brag in your email marketing

You’ll want to make sure that you’re bragging about your award everywhere you can. Emails are a great place for that. You can make specialized emails focused on your award. Or simply add in the honors to your existing communications.

If you have a regular newsletter, dedicate a special edition to announcing the honors. Make an event out of it and catch subscribers’ attention by detailing how and why you won.

What makes your customer relations the best in the business? Why is your business the top tourist hotspot? Awards carry prestige by nature. But customers want to know just why you’re the best.

This is also a good place to start incorporating the award logo into your branding. This would be temporary and wouldn’t be applicable in all branding locations, so there’s no need to rework your logo. So find the best way to pair your logo with the award branding and place that naturally in your emails. Have employees update their signatures to include that your business is an award winner.

Show off the award with pride

Take advantage of this time to promote your award in the digital and physical space. SEM campaigns can show web searchers that you are a business worth looking into. And traditional web page ads catch the attention of audiences in your area, if you are employing geomarketing capabilities.

Businesses with a customer-facing storefront will have an easy time showing off their award. On-location signage promotes your success to all potential customers or clients.

But businesses located within a large office complex in their own suite don’t have the opportunity to flaunt as much. Local billboards are a good substitute and open you up for even greater reach.

If physical ads by the side of the highway aren’t your thing, you should at least be showing off your victory on your website and social media pages. Update your website’s hero image and fancy up your homepage for a few weeks to celebrate. Maybe even run a contest to show you want to celebrate with your customers, not just tell them how great you are.

Other benefits of winning awards

If you haven’t gotten your business entered into awards, consider the added benefits outside of attracting new business. The prestige of being an award-winning organization affects all aspects of business.

Awards can bring growth to your business internally as well. It’s not always about showing off the award to the public. Current staff will be able to take pride in the work they do and the company they belong to. It’s an opportunity for a great boost in company morale. So even just putting up the award logo around the office can have great effects.

The celebration events for the awards themselves can also be a great opportunity for employees of winning businesses. Award parties can be a place to network with other winning businesses and build new business relationships.

Our Charleston’s Choice celebration brings together local businesses and gives them a chance to show the community why they were selected for the top honors. Restaurants and beverage companies can share their award-winning creations with attendees.

There is always value in building your face-to-face engagement with your community. Event sponsorships can enable you to directly reach your community and professional peers. It is a great way to build your brand image.

Signs, advertisements and published announcements are the wide-reaching way to show off your accomplishment. But, an event sponsorship gives you a more intimate way to connect with potential customers or partners.

Finally, it should go without saying that a little time to unwind does wonders for everyone.