Impremedia has opened the doors to its new portal site, Impre.com. The site ties together the publisher's various print properties under one banner, linking to each of the newspaper's websites. As part of the initiative, each newspaper website has been totally re-designed.
The site features its own evergreen content, such as basic home finance advice and automotive content, that is designed to be of a more timeless nature than standard news items. It also links to Impremedia's special election coverage, "VotoLatino 2008," which chronicles the candidates' battle for the presidency.
Impre.com incorporates some interactive components wherein users can communicate with each other through blogs and video/photo galleries. For more info on the other content that will be featured on the new site, refer to the article below from when Portada first broke the story last month.
For an in-depth look at how the rest of the Hispanic newspaper market is adapting to the online landscape, please refer to the cover article Portada's current issue, "Are Latin Newspapers Ready for the Billion Dollar Online Business?"
Portada conducted a Q&A with Mario Alfano, SVP Marketing & New Business Initiatives ImpreMedia Digital.
Portada: It seems that you are highlighting La Vibra a lot with banners in the other sites of your network to attract traffic. Is there a particular reason for that?
Mario Alfano: The banners and advertising are all rolling in as we speak. Our house ads will feature all areas of the network and will encourage new and current users to explore the whole network. You will see more user communication, both traditional and innovative, rolling out over the coming days.
Portada: Can you explain how advertisers target bilingual and English dominant Hispanics through the Vista and La Vibra websites.
Mario Alfano: Vista and La Vibra will respectively target Hispanic women and young Latinos, as they do in print. In the case of Vista, the print publication is fully bi-lingual and is distributed more broadly than in ImpreMedia publications, as it is inserted in several large English-language pubs in cities with major Hispanic communities. In the case of La Vibra, the website will reflect the trends among the younger, urban, Latino population who consume their entertainment information in both English and Spanish, whichever is more relevant. You can imagine that a story about Shakira may be more relevant in Spanish, while a story about AC/DC might be more relevant in English.
Portada: What role will e-mail newsletters play?
Mario Alfano: We have a whole suite of newsletters and daily/breaking news alerts. These are by topic and by publication. This is in addition to our usual custom emails. Our goal is to engage with our users and to encourage them to build profiles that will allow us to provide them with the most relevant information, features and tools.
Portada: La Vibra Houston is not included in the website list. Why?
Mario Alfano: Traditionally, we’ve featured the top five LaVibra editions on the website. I know that our distribution of LaVibra extends beyond those markets.
Related Article: Impremedia Constructing Online Network (Feb. 2008)
