The folks over at Niche Media recently posted a great list of ways niche publishers can generate additional revenue online. Here's a few examples, but you can view the complete list here: http://www.nichedigitalconference.com/content/25-online-revenue-ideas-niche-publishers

1. Place each email you collect on multiple e-mail lists.  This allows you to send topically based messages. If a user unsubscribes you will not lose them completely.  Instead you’ll just lose them from one list.  Be sure to tell/ask users about this practice.

2. Engage your audience and create community by forming self-serve classified portals on the web.  You can start free and offer paid up-sells.

3. Encourage advertisers to use custom URLs to track success. If you look closely at Google Analytics, you will see a traffic statistic called "direct traffic". This can account for as much as 20% of total traffic and most advertisers do not track their direct traffic. Make sure you get credit for traffic that you drive to an advertiser's website.

4. Offer to do video interviews/demos for sponsors & advertisers as part of a digital bundle. As an up sell, make it available on your site, on their site, and on DVD (for offline mailing). Also, ask advertisers if they have promo videos for their product or service.  Then, create a channel to house and offer these videos to your audience.  Most advertisers have spent a ton of money on these videos and want to use them.

5. Create an e-newsletter from your sales team to your current advertisers with content that that positions you as a leader in the marketplace. Fill it with industry news, local news, upcoming issues, current hot topics, and your social media offerings. (Not just ad deadlines!)

View Complete List of Ways Niche Publisher's Can Generate Additional Revenue Online

There is a Niche Digital conference coming up in September in Chicago that may be of interest to you niche publishers on MediaBids. We attended a conference put on by this group last year and it was fantastic. Learn more here: http://www.nichedigitalconference.com/

Late this afternoon I opened the latest "Growing Audience" alert from the Newspaper Association of America. I got excited when I saw the title to a posting on the NAA blog: "E-alert: Innovation Highlights from the Poynter McCormick Big Ideas Conference"

Any time there is something that mentions newspapers, magazines and a big idea, I have high hopes. Here at Mediabids, we believe that the time is perfect for big ideas which address some of the difficulties being faced by newspapers and magazines around the country. We constantly speak to publications and advertisers about our big idea - how to sell more print ads using an online marketplace -  so we are big idea people. We embrace big ideas.

I suppose calling a conference the "Poynter McCormick somewhat interesting and marginally relevant idea conference" isn't really that compelling but it would have been more accurate.

There are a few clever ideas but I expected more (a lot more) given the current state of the print industry and the projections for the future.

Here are a few of the allegedly "big ideas:"

7 to 7 Breaking News Blog -- The Providence Journal hosts a breaking news blog Monday through Friday with ads and creates a blog stylebook, best practices for linking, and a sets protocol for fast breaking news.

Reader Interactivity in Exactly Six Words -- The Times Union asked readers to submit what they thought was best about their region in exactly six words.

Today in Brevard -- Florida Today created a half-hour, live streamed daily newscast broadcast on floridatoday.com.

Buzz Style -- The Sun/Inland Valley Daily Tribune creates a no-nonsense news presentation for need-to-know news consumers.

Monday, Monday* -- How the Anniston Star set about to create a more lively Monday paper, jumpStart, and the lessons learned along the way.

Here is the only one I could find that had anything to do with sales:

Sales Force of the Future -- Morris Communications is mobilizing around strategic innovation with one focus around creating a best-in-class multimedia sales force.

This can't be the sum total of big ideas in the print industry, can it? Maybe it is just because we are focused on sales but isn't that what matters most right now? Wouldn't you think that innovative approaches to selling print inventory would be the most important thing to all the smart people in the print industry who were at this conference? I was disappointed at the almost complete lack of attention to the revenue stream. Isn't that what an organization like the NAA should be most worried about right now? Do you think that at some point one of the attendees at this conference said to another attendee: "these sure are some neat ideas, hope we can stay in business long enough to try them out."

Here are a couple good (non-revenue generating) ideas: 

The Reporter's Notebook* -- The Twin Cities Daily Planet encourages the audience to participate in the news gathering process by posting upcoming story outlines to their online Reporter's Notebook inciting readers to comment, upload documents and contribute to the process before publishing.

Curate Your Community -- The St.Louis Post-Dispatch created more than 300 microlocal news sites.