OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Sentinel, Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield, through its parent company, Sample News Group (SNG), announced the hiring of Roy Daugherty as vice president for Digital Development.
Daugherty will help usher the company’s community newspapers into a new era of multi-media publishing.
“Our newly formed digital division will complement all of our legacy print publications, said company CEO George (“Scoop”) Sample. “Our traditional print products will remain popular for years to come due to the nature of the communities where we publish. But Roy’s appointment indicates our long-term commitment to growth, new technologies and to the evolving media landscape in our hometowns.”
Daugherty is based in central Pennsylvania and will travel regularly to SNG’s newspaper markets in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and New England. His primary role will be connecting the local newspapers’ business clients to a wider range of advertising and marketing solutions.
“The power of digital continues to grow exponentially,” said Daugherty, citing statistics that some $356 billion was spent on digital advertising in 2020, and that spend is expected to grow to half-a-trillion dollars by the year 2025.
Daugherty was most recently regional digital sales specialist & digital sales manager for Amplified Digital and Lee Enterprise, working from the company’s Carlisle (Pa.) Sentinel newspaper. Educated at the University of Memphis, Daugherty has also held senior sales positions with the PA Media Group, Penn Live and The Patriot News in Harrisburg.
With SNG’s newspapers, he will work closely with publishers and local sales representatives to assist any size business with the rollout of multi-channel marketing campaigns that include measured and tracked results. In addition to print and traditional web advertising, SNG’s digital division will provide a one-stop shop for GoogleAds, SEO, geo-fencing, email marketing, social media management and other audience targeting solutions.
“These products and services, when implemented correctly, can help local small businesses take advantage of the big box and national brand strategies, positioning them to compete and to capture a portion of new web visitors in the market,” Daugherty said. “Previously, SNG’s community newspapers had a very limited toolbox to help their local advertisers digitally, but we’ll now be in a position to help our core small business partners in each market more than ever.”
Sample News Group is a privately held publishing company based in Huntingdon, Pa., with 17 daily newspapers and more than 35 weeklies and specialty magazines across five mid-Atlantic states. The company also owns and operates some 30 local websites six centralized printing and production facilities, employing more than 700 people in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont and New Hampshire.