Uriah Kiser is the founder and publisher of Potomac Local News, an independent digital publication he launched in 2010 to serve his hometown and communities across Northern Virginia. The publication now reaches nearly 150,000 readers monthly through its digital platforms.
Kiser is also a founding member and former board member of LION Publishers—and an early adopter of Kiser is also a founding member and former board member of LION Publishers—and an early adopter of Broadstreet, an ad manager built for local publishers. Broadstreet helps publishers create, manage, deliver and report on digital campaigns, with creative formats designed to win more local advertising dollars and keep that spending with local news instead of Google and Meta. Potomac Local was just the ninth publication to join the platform.
Kiser is also a founding member and former board member of LION Publishers—and an early adopter of Broadstreet an ad manager built for local publishers. Broadstreet helps publishers create, manage, deliver and report on digital campaigns, with creative formats designed to win more local advertising dollars and keep that spending with local news instead of Google and Meta. Potomac Local was just the ninth publication to join the platform.
Kiser’s experience taught him that those credentials rarely close an advertising sale. Understanding the business does.
Scale standardizes while publishers listen
Like many independent publishers, Kiser once entered sales conversations prepared to explain what made his publication impressive: its audience, its journalism, its history and its reach.
Then he realized that the advertiser did not come to the meeting to hear a speech about Potomac Local. The advertiser wanted to talk about the business. “I figured out to just shut up and listen and talk to the business owner about their business,” Kiser said.
That change led to more useful conversations. Instead of forcing every prospect into a standard package, Kiser could identify what the business wanted to accomplish and choose the right formats and channels for that goal.
Google and Meta achieve enormous reach through automation and standardization. Advertisers choose from predefined objectives, formats, audiences and budgets, then work within the platform’s process. That model is efficient because it treats campaigns consistently. A local publisher can do the opposite when the advertiser needs it: change the size, placement, channel, message or mix when a better idea emerges.
That is the independent publisher’s advantage. The advertiser does not have to fit the platform. The publisher can listen first and build around the advertiser.
Freedom turns one idea into a campaign
Kiser offered the example of a longtime real estate advertiser who wanted to remain visible in the community without producing another predictable conversation about mortgages, inventory or interest rates.
Potomac Local recorded the Realtor at a new local brewery. Instead of focusing narrowly on real estate, the conversation explored the community, its growth and what residents should know about the area. In approximately 90 minutes, Kiser’s team captured enough material for four or five podcast episodes—a quarter’s worth of content.
The Realtor was able to demonstrate local knowledge and personality. The brewery received added exposure. Potomac Local created original material that could be distributed through multiple channels.
This is what publisher autonomy looks like. Kiser did not begin with a standard product and try to fit the Realtor inside it. He listened, recognized an opportunity involving another local business and built an idea that could travel across podcast episodes and other channels. A programmatic platform can efficiently buy impressions. It is not designed to create this kind of local collaboration around one advertiser’s personality and goals.
Freedom changes the recommendation
Julie Beth Maglio, owner, publisher and editor of the Hernando Sun in Florida, operates with the same flexibility.
Maglio and her husband launched the Hernando Sun after the closure of Hernando Today left their community without its own newspaper. The publication now produces thousands of print copies each week while serving a substantial digital audience.
Maglio also handles much of the publication’s advertising sales herself. Local business owners know they are speaking with someone who understands the market, controls the publication’s inventory and can make decisions without passing the idea through layers of approval.
That flexibility is visible in Maglio’s experience with Daybreak, Broadstreet’s free tool that lets business owners visiting a publisher’s website express interest in advertising. The Hernando Sun has received approximately 20 inquiries through it, and one became a new advertiser.
The advertiser arrived through a digital form but ultimately purchased print advertising. Maglio was free to recommend the channel that suited the business rather than forcing the prospect into the product associated with the original inquiry.
The lead arrived digitally, but Maglio did not have to keep the sale there. She listened and recommended the channel that fit the advertiser. That freedom—to move from digital to print, or combine both—is another advantage a local publisher controls. Daybreak began the conversation; Maglio’s judgment shaped the solution.
Creative control makes the advantage visible
Independent publishers also control the advertising canvas itself. Larger ad-tech exchanges depend on standard sizes and repeatable workflows. A publisher can decide how large an ad should be, where it should appear, what information it should contain and how quickly it should change. Those are not minor production choices. They are tools for building a campaign around the advertiser.
At Potomac Local News, Kiser uses oversized digital units that command far more space than a standard banner ad available through an exchange. He can run a slideshow for an event, keep a unit fresh with social content, choose its position and update the creative as the client’s needs change. The format follows the campaign idea instead of forcing the idea into a standard format.
The Hernando Sun uses Broadstreet’s Magic Spec format, which can be assembled automatically with AI or built manually, along with high-impact formats such as Broadstreet’s Amazing Cube. Motion and unusual shapes are not decoration when they serve the advertiser’s message. They give Maglio another way to combine useful information, strong imagery and a clear call to action in a placement she controls.
The Hernando Sun uses flexible Broadstreet formats to make an advertiser’s message more useful, visible and distinctive than a conventional static banner.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Small publishers can break the rules in ways that deliver incredible value. Too often, publishers focus on whether they have enough traffic to compete. The better question is what they can do with the attention they already have that a standardized platform cannot. Sometimes the simplest and most understandable answer is size: Give the advertiser more room, more visibility and a placement readers cannot miss.
The playbook is straightforward: go larger when visibility matters, choose a page position readers will see, make the creative informative instead of generic and refresh it while the campaign is running. Standard IAB sizes make buying and selling at scale efficient. Independent publishers can step outside those standards when the advertiser will benefit from a better idea.
That is where the publisher becomes more than an advertising vendor. “A sandwich always tastes better when somebody else makes it,” Kiser said.
The same advantage runs through every example in this story. Kiser listened and turned one conversation into a quarter of content. Maglio followed a digital lead into print. Both publishers can shape display creative around the message instead of a standard template. Local knowledge, direct access and creative control allow them to build what an auction-based platform is not designed to reproduce.
Daybreak starts the conversation
Daybreak asks website visitors whether they own or manage a business and gives interested visitors a simple way to contact the publisher. Broadstreet handles the installation, and the tool is free to publishers. It creates an opening, but the publisher’s advantage begins after the lead arrives.
The publisher can listen to the business owner, recommend the right channels and create something specifically for that advertiser.
That may mean print instead of digital. It may mean a podcast series, an oversized unit, a slideshow, the Amazing Cube or a combination.The point is not to be different for its own sake. The point is to use the freedom already available to produce a better answer for the advertiser.
Maglio’s experience shows that a digital inquiry can become a print customer. Kiser’s brewery recording shows that one thoughtful idea can become a quarter’s worth of content. Their examples make the same case: Independent publishers can adapt because they own the relationship, the inventory and the decision.
Smaller competitors have challenged larger ones throughout history by using guerrilla tactics the bigger organization is not built to counter. For independent publishers, those advantages are speed, creativity, local knowledge and the freedom to customize.
Independent publishers do not need to beat Google or Meta at scale. They can win by doing what scale makes difficult: listen to one advertiser, use every channel and format they control, and change the plan when a better idea emerges. The audience, relationships, inventory and decision-making authority are already theirs. Put those advantages to work.
Begin more local advertising conversations
Daybreak can put an interested business owner in front of the publisher. The publisher’s freedom turns that introduction into a campaign built around the advertiser. Daybreak is free to add, with no contract, credit card or obligation, and Broadstreet handles the setup.
Learn more about using Daybreak to connect with potential advertisers already visiting your website. Then use the audience, inventory and creative freedom you already control to give those businesses something the big platforms cannot.
About Broadstreet and Daybreak
Broadstreet provides advertising technology designed specifically for independent news, magazine and B2B publishers. Its platform helps publishers create, manage and report on digital advertising campaigns while offering creative formats that go beyond conventional banner advertising.
Daybreak is Broadstreet’s completely free lead-generation tool for publishers. Embedded on a publisher’s website, it identifies visitors who own or manage businesses and helps turn existing audience traffic into new advertising conversations.
Broadstreet’s goal is to bring Daybreak to 10,000 publishers, helping independent media organizations generate more local advertising opportunities while preserving the flexibility, creativity and direct relationships that distinguish them from large advertising platforms.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here