KrusevacGrad, a small local outlet based in the town of Kruševac in central Serbia, managed to increase commitment and engagement of the community, as well as to develop new advertising packages for local businesses, by advancing technical capacities and team’s knowhow.
Namely, the new website, result of Media for All intervention, is mobile-friendly and more interactive compared to the old one. Also, capacity building training, video production among others, together with the new video equipment led to creation of visually attractive content.
“This resulted in an increased number of visitors to the portal,” pointed out from KrusevacGrad.
Another segment in their multifaceted business plan - improvement of the content and technical capabilities of the website and creation of a new shape-to-the-needs package of products and services – is marketing strategy.
“For the first time we have our own marketing strategy and media kit. Also, we employed a marketing manager who is working with the potential clients,” Nadežda Budimović, project coordinator at KrusevacGrad, said. As a result, the outlet has several new clients.
In addition to the marketing strategy, they organised special events to bust the visibility of the outlet. “In order to establish better contact with our audience we started organising meetings in popular cafe bars under the motto “Coffee with the readers”, Budimović said.
At the moment, with the support of Thomson Foundation experts, they are working on establishing a crowdfunding campaign.
“Media for All is a turning point for all of us. It helped us to better understand the market, gave us additional know-how, and basically put us on solid ground to become a self-sustainable outlet,” Budimović said.
Portal KrusevacGrad is part of the publishing company ALBOS, founded in 2002, owning one print (the newspaper GRAD) and one digital edition (Krusevacgrad.rs). The portal was registered in 2015 offering free content and differing in topics compared to the print.
The portal is one of the 16 outlets from Serbia that are part of the Media for All project which is funded by the UK Government and implemented by the British Council, Thomson Foundation, BIRN and INTRAC in all Western Balkans countries.
