The New York Times Co. and Hoover’s
aim to promote each other’s online subscription products through a new joint marketing deal.
For Austin-based Hoover’s, the two companies will look to boost subscriptions to its online information service.
At the same time, the effort will seek to drive sales for The New York Times Electronic Edition, a searchable, digital reproduction of the day’s print newspaper delivered online. The service is offered through subscription or single-copy sales.
The marketing arrangement between Hoover’s and The New York Times will see each company placing ads on their home page directing traffic to a joint site designed to sell joint, discounted packages of both Hoover’s and the Times’ Electronic Edition.
The New York Times also said it would commit ads in its print edition to the effort.
Together, the partners are banking that the two products make for a more compelling offer. The year-old Electronic Edition appeals to a niche audience of business decision-makers who obviously prefer the paper to be delivered online as closely as possible to the original offline layout.
“Hoover’s is a great complement to the daily news provided by The New York Times,” said Russell Secker, executive vice president of marketing for Hoover’s.
Added Scott Heekin-Canedy, senior vice president of circulation at The Times, “We are pleased to join forces with Hoover’s to offer the business community two powerful research tools for tracking financial information on specific companies and industries.”
While the Electronic Edition was widely touted at the time of its launch early last year, the venture has yet to become a major source of revenue for the New York Times Co.’s interactive division.
But the company continues to have high hopes for the product nevertheless. In April, The New York Times Co. upped its minority stake in NewsStand, the Austin-based technology vendor of the service providing the Electronic Edition.
Two months later, company executives said that they had signed about 3,400 subscribers to the service, generating about $1.1 million in annual revenue. New York Times President and Chief Executive Russell Lewis said the company expects to add $1 million in additional revenue this year.
