Jagran's Cityplus aims to create a bond with the audience!

Community newspapers 'Cityplus' aim at creating a bond with the audience by publishing local news. Such newspapers reflect the lives of readers by covering what's of upmost importance to them. Be it, people, news or events in their community. The big hype about daily newspapers has died down. Now the focus is more on the rise and shine of community papers and the influence they have on the market.

Community newspapers can address an issue better than any other medium.

Statistics reveal, readers connect easily with hyper-local newspapers as the news is related to them and is tailor made to their taste. These papers create an intimate relationship with the readers making it easy for the advertisers to reach them.

Community newspapers believe the ideal advertising strategy is to move away from thinking national or even regional but to go local.

The findings of a study done by 'National Newspaper Readership of America' reveal that 81 per cent population are prone to reading hyper-local newspapers. The local community newspaper is the primary source of information about the local community for 60 percent of respondents, that's four times greater than the second and third most popular sources of local news.

Hyper-local newspapers are very popular abroad. Canada has 1,100 community newspapers that reach millions of readers each week.

In India, Jagran Cityplus is the first community newspaper to explore this concept. The English weekly began with one edition in Noida in the year 2006 and went on to expand in Gurgaon, Faridabad and other areas in Delhi NCR. Today it has 13 editions in the National Capital region. Bangalore was the first non-Jagran belt city where Cityplus was launched in 2007 from Indiranagar. Riding on its popularity wave, it expanded to six more areas, today Bangalore has seven editions of Cityplus. Cityplus launched in Pune in 2009 and today has seven editions in culturally rich areas like Aundh, Deccan, Koregaon Park, Kondhwa, Kothrud, Wakad and Camp. In 2010, the tabloid was launched in the twin cities of Hyderabad/Secundrabad and Mumbai, the financial capital of India.

As Cityplus enters the fifth year, it humbly flaunts 35 editions. Speaking on the community papers space and why Jagran entered this genre Shailesh Gupta, Director Jagran Prakashan Limited said, "Community papers are a great success across the globe and provide hyper- local content and are an apt medium to advertise for both organised and unorganised retailers. Looking at India's growth story in the last five years, it seemed appropriate to tap this space and create a community connect. Cityplus also gave us an opportunity to venture into the non-Jagran belt, thus increasing our footprint."

Cityplus aims to reach the entire tier I and II towns in India, by expanding to cities like Ahmedabad, Baroda, Indore, Chennai and various other cities. Cityplus caters to premium residential localities in each city.

Speaking about the future path, Salil Tandon, CEO Cityplus said, "With the advent of satellite cities and off shooting of new townships, a community centric product like Cityplus is the need of the hour. It helps the migrated people to know and become a part of their locality. The local advertisers get an effective and low cost medium to reach their target audience."

The emotional connect with its readers has elevated Jagran Cityplus as the number One community newspaper. Puja Sethi, Executive editor says, "Cityplus is a link that binds different communities in various cities. We chronicle the everyday lives of our readers. They may be civic issues, triumphs or tribulations of life. We publish news that has an instant connect with the readers. Each edition has a different frame of reference. We explore the neighbourhood issues of five cities which national dailies usually ignore. Cityplus also publishes the triumphs of life, profiles of courage, accomplishment or simple good heartedness."

The distribution Channel of Cityplus is unique and first of its kind in India. The areas and households are carefully selected and the newspaper is delivered door to door through a dedicated in house team, thus making sure it reaches the right audience and giving maximum ROI to the clients. Also this channel has become a great sampling tool for clients, it helps them to identify and reach their areas of interest.