Crux’ fifth birthday: new digital products, expanded team and free!

It’s the fifth birthday of Crux on May 3 and we are celebrating with news of our further expansion – especially into the area of innovative digital advertising.

We all love our local newspapers, but the current media environment is accelerating the move to digital by both audiences and advertisers. The move is driven by the increasing costs hitting print media and a desire by advertisers to measure and control the results of their precious ad spend.

Debbie Knowles is Crux new sales manager - she's based in Queenstown and on 027 308 2121 or [email protected]

Reacting to these market trends, Crux has strengthened  our sales team and is launching some new products and deals that will encourage print advertisers to dip their toes into the digital market and experience the results firsthand. And, of course, for experienced digital advertisers and agencies we have the best technology and reporting tools – plus the biggest audience in Queenstown, Wānaka and Cromwell.

Crux will stay free of charge and continue to offer the very best quality local journalism. That’s why our growth has been so spectacular, including our newsletter that goes to more than 4,500 readers every Friday.

Crux is now read by up to 10,000 local residents each day – that’s close to the weekly readership of our individual local community newspapers. Plus, our digital ads are more cost effective and true to the exact quality of images, messaging and brand.

Debbie Knowles starts work on May 1 as our new sales manager, supported by Nikki McKay, who also edits our Community Bulletin.

Debbie has lived and worked in the United Kingdom and Queenstown. She brings a wealth of digital sales experience to Crux and we know she’ll be a huge hit with our local businesses. You can reach Debbie at [email protected] and on 027 308 2121. You may even be able to twist her arm to take advantage of some fifth birthday Crux generosity!

We are also now offering advanced digital reporting tools that give each advertiser access to precisely how their ads are performing. The reporting includes impressions, hovers and click throughs for each banner position, as well as a comparison of the click-through rate with industry standards.

Advertisers get their own personalised dashboard which also allows them to upload new ad creative and even work with us to test an A and B version of a future campaign.

Each Crux advertiser gets their own personalised dashboard with detailed performance and audience reporting

We can combine the market-leading performance of the Crux website with our dominant position on Facebook, along with the weekly newsletter to give unparalleled access to our ever-growing audience.

Peter Newport - one of the country's most experienced journalists

Our 2023 rate card features new deals and packages, plus the detailed demographics and size of our audience. As we approach our fifth birthday the Crux website has just passed the 4-million page-view threshold with the average time spent on each page at two minutes and 22 seconds – that means that our digital ads are seen for up to ten times longer than other digital platforms that may only have a 20-second average time on page.

There’s also special discounted advertising rates for local schools, clubs, charities and not for profit organisations.

Driving our audience growth has been our superb editorial team. Managing editor Peter Newport is one of New Zealand’s most experienced journalists having worked for every NZ news outlet as well as Channels 9 and 10 Australia, the BBC and two of the top US networks.

Peter works with senior journalist/editor Kim Bowden and journalist Lauren Pattemore. Crux could not be more proud of our news output, which is always bold, well researched and supportive of our local communities. And, of course, we take our role in holding power to account quite seriously – that’s how democracy works.

So, please get in touch and take advantage of our unique reach and engagement. We’ve worked hard over the past five years to get our news platform, social media presence and newsletter into great shape – its time to share that success with our local advertisers.

After all, the success of local employers is part of the same healthy, balanced community that our strong journalism works to support. Revenue from our advertisers will keep Crux free of charge to all of our readers - and of course that makes our audience even bigger!

Main Image: The Crux team, left to right. Debbie Knowles, Nikki McKay, Lauren Pattemore, Kim Bowden and Peter Newport.