Empowering Advance Local’s Sales Team with a New Revenue Stream
Challenge
Advance Local’s advertising sales team wanted a fresh, results-oriented product to offer local business advertisers beyond traditional print and digital display. Advertisers were increasingly asking for measurable engagement and direct customer connections, rather than simple brand awareness. The sales team needed a turnkey, differentiating solution that could drive direct business outcomes while being easy to sell and deliver.
Solution
Through a collaboration between Subtext, Advance Local, and Syracuse.com, the team launched Syracuse Dining Deals — an SMS-based sponsorship program sold by the Advance Local sales team to local restaurant advertisers.
The program leveraged Syracuse.com’s deep local reach and community trust, giving the sales team a new, high-impact offering to bring to market.
Key features of the program:
- Custom restaurant offers delivered via SMS to opted-in Syracuse Dining Deals subscribers.
- Weekly texts with exclusive dining deals, early access to new openings, and local food events.
- Multi-channel promotion from the Syracuse.com team amplified subscriber growth and advertiser visibility through:
- ¼-page print ads in The Post-Standard
- The Syracuse.com Foodie newsletter & Facebook group
- Social media campaigns
- Run-of-site display ads with QR codes and custom landing pages
- Flexible sponsorship tiers (1-, 3-, and 6-month options) with defined impression guarantees (30K–132K).
- Limited availability — only four sponsorship slots offered at a time — giving advertisers exclusivity and the sales team a scarcity-driven pitch.
Results
Over the four-month pilot, Syracuse Dining Deals proved to be a success for both the sales team and local advertisers, validating SMS as a new revenue driver within Advance Local’s ad portfolio.
For the sales team: Provided a new, tangible product with measurable outcomes — impressions, leads, and redemptions — that enhanced traditional offerings and gave account executives a powerful new way to deliver results.
For local advertisers: Enabled direct access to an engaged, local dining audience ready to act — reaching customers where they’re most attentive: their phones.
For Syracuse.com: Strengthened its position as Central New York’s go-to food authority, leveraging its community-driven platforms like Where Syracuse Eats to build and monetize a new direct-to-consumer channel.
The combination of strong community engagement, simple mobile delivery, and a sales-friendly sponsorship model created a win-win-win for advertisers, the sales team, and the Syracuse.com brand. In just four months, Syracuse Dining Deals generated new revenue, strengthened client relationships, and demonstrated how SMS can become a powerful new revenue stream for local media organizations.
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