N } By Robin Blinder
ow more than ever, news publishers need to be supported by suppliers and vendors that help create content, build audience and monetize every eyeball for the best return on investment. A business partner is a company that takes the time to get to know the challenges of a news media business and becomes a partner who works directly with teams to implement transformational applications, solutions and strategies. Imagine what our industry would be like without these critical partner companies and their devoted representatives — those that truly help our media businesses win in increasingly competitive marketplaces. That is why we at E&P decided to launch this salute to “Business Partner Powerhouses” — those superb companies that excel at supplying our industry with the products and services that make us sleep better a night, knowing they have “our backs” every day. In alphabetical order by company name
A Marketing Resource www.amr-advantage.com
A Marketing Resource (AMR) was founded in 2001 as a marketing agency with one call-center location. It has grown to support services for newspapers, cable, utilities, environmental services, telecom, healthcare and small to medium retailers in multiple locations worldwide. Since their inception, AMR has provided consistent, reliable and costeffective services and have become the “single-source” sales, service and marketing partner for many clients. AMR has partnered with over 500 newspapers in the areas of customer care, classifieds, audience retention and marketing programs. AMR is most excited about the recent launch of a new program —
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} Barry O’Rourke, sr. vp marketing and sales, at the Great Western Audience Alliance conference (Photo provided by AMR)
the Cash Discount program — for the newspaper industry. They are looking forward to partnering with more publishing groups to help eliminate expensive credit card fees. In his nomination for AMR, Aaron Kotarek, senior vice president of audience and operations, Oahu
Publications, Inc. (OPI), said, “AMR has partnered with OPI for over two decades and has been a strategic thought leader and collaborator as OPI continues to embrace emerging technologies, revenue diversification strategies and a relentless quest toward transformative innovation. AMR has been a key cog in our innovations, as they recently delivered cutting-edge financial technology to OPI in order to implement a robust Cash Discount Program aimed at eliminating our exorbitant credit/debit card interchange fees. This initiative was a roaring success and helped shave $1.2 million in expense off of our bottom line…. AMR has embraced our recently employed Premium Digital Content Strategy and now sells digital subscriptions to prospective subscribers at greater frequency. “I personally view AMR’s Stop Saver Program as an industry leading best editorandpublisher.com
