Nova Scotia Business Journal
Although the Nova Scotia Business Journal (NSBJ) has been around for the last couple of decades, it's really only started to make a splash in the last five years. That's when Publisher Jeff Nearing came on board.
Prior to taking over the helm of the business publication, Nearing hadn't even heard of it. He attributes this to NSBJ's once-low print run of about 10,000 copies. "The first thing I did was to increase the monthly circulation to 60,000 and send it out en masse across the province." This was a huge expense, but Nearing says the traction NSBJ immediately gained in readership more than offset that.
The other significant strategy that Nearing adopted was creating a "business advocacy" approach to content. "Right from the beginning, my agenda has been to help endorse Nova Scotia business to Nova Scotians," says Nearing. The focus? Good news stories. "While we don’t shy away from controversial content, our mandate is to make Nova Scotians feel good about their business community."
Delivered once a month to 70,000 homes and workplaces and read by approximately 175,000 readers, NSBJ offers “news you can use” to build your business. Coverage of business events, local success stories, and topical issues affecting Nova Scotia's business sectors are on offer. Nearing says that the publication prides itself on being relevant and reader-friendly. "We believe that we've created an engaging format to read business news."
Raised in Toronto by Cape Breton-born parents, Nearing started his career with Holiday Media, a travel publishing company he helped found. Five years ago, his business was purchased by Transcontinental Media, and he was asked to take the helm of NSBJ. Working in a division called Transcontinental Specialty Publications, Nearing also manages the publication of Occasions Magazine, the Burnside News, Atlantic Farm Focus magazine, Atlantic Construction and Transportation Journal, and several tourism publications such as the Canada Select Guides.
Six full time employees, including a news editor, features editor, sales team, and advertising coordinator help to produce the print version of the province's Business Journal. They also create content for NSBJ's online presence, which gets 80,000 to 100,000 visitors per month. The publication's team has also developed a free email service called the Daily Business Buzz, which delivers an email of top business stories to subscribers every day.
According to Nearing, it's a way for business people all around the province to connect. "If you’re living in Halifax, you would never otherwise be able to hear these stories coming out of New Glasgow or Cape Breton." Nearing believes it's important for these news items to be accessible, short, and concise. "The stigma with business journals is they tend to be viewed as having dry content. What we're trying to do, and hopefully what we’re achieving, is to make the news relevant and consumable - stories that can be read online in a decent amount of time."
Read by about 6,000 people per day, the Daily Business Buzz has developed a life of its own in the form of an online community. "Depending on how topical the story is, you can have up to 15 comments going back and forth in a single day on a story," says Nearing. "We perceive this as a real success for this product and we're planning to grow it Atlantic-wide."
Current distribution of the print version of NSBJ occurs through the Transcontinental channels. What this means for some of the province's major centres is that the publication is tucked into the many newspapers that the company owns. There are several dailies, including the Cape Breton Post, the New Glasgow Daily News, and the Truro Daily News, and also a variety of weekly newspapers. "When we put 10,000 copies within these newspapers, we can be sure that we’re reaching not only the business people, but all the residential customers as well," says Nearing. "We can really cover the market."
When it comes to Halifax, due to the demise of the Transcontinental-owned Daily News, the company has to utilize a different strategy. Inserts into the Globe and Mail and direct mail-outs to business addresses cover a large cross-section, supplemented by coverage to industrial parks in the area.
Guided by the motto “Business news that matters,” Nearing believes that NSBJ is working because it is telling a wide variety of stories and building a community of interest. "Our funnel is wider than most in terms of what we’ll write about," he says, citing articles about everything from the pork industry to regional book publishing. "And I think that keeps people coming back."
Funded solely through advertising support, NSBJ and its publisher have been fielding good responses to what they are doing. "By and large, we're hearing exceptionally positive things," says Nearing. "People really enjoy the product and the format. They like the news and the fact that it’s provincial in scope."
As someone who is engaged in business all over North America and in the United Kingdom, Nearing still finds Nova Scotia a fantastic place to live and work. "The quality of life here is amazing and the business community is robust," he says. "It’s very easy to get yourself known very quickly." Nearing considers this a huge advantage. "It means that you can go out there and you can create really significant relationships fairly quickly."
