Time: How to Save Your Newspaper

I've found that most newpaper message boards aren't very active. People seem to prefer Rivals.com ones or grass roots boards.

I guess they see the newspaper as the establishment. They'll read us, then take their discussions elsewhere.

 

If the advertisers not trusting the hits are why we don't have internet revenue, the the problem is simple. Fire all the salespeople and hire ones who know how to do the job. No one uses "hits" btw. Most people use Google Analytics or some form of it. With the Analytics program you can measure 100,000 times more than just subscriptions like our outdated print products.

Heck, how many people look at an ad in the newspaper? With Analytics you can get the exact number. You can see how much time someone has spent on a site, where they came to the site from, where they connected to the internet (cities,states and countries), and how many times each user looked at a site and that is just the tip of the iceberg. You want to know something about a use you visited your site, you can find it and track it.

For this to work, the old foggies in advertising have to start trusting those numbers. They are real, a lot more so than the old ones we spit out about "total readers" of our print product. Those numbers are the real bull$hit.

 

It's easy really. Subscribe for the same price you always have and get access to the following:
1) A PDF version of the paper sent to your email.
2) All blogs
3) All slide shows and video
4) All sidebars that don't make it into print

Don't subscribe and you can buy the print edition at your local 7/11.

 

I want to see some hard numbers, in context, of the amount of advertising dollars generated online. Not some projection for the future. Now.

 

I actually agree with most of that, but you do need something free worth seeing on the Web site to draw traffic. People are not going to subscribe over night, though. And $60 grand is still two reporters and I imagine if you have $9 mill in revenue and only $60 grand from the web, than it is all a national ad campaign and nothing in house. So, there is not cost to placing any of those ads. If they are all in-house, than quit that effort and sign up for national ads. With your revenue, you easily will get around $50 grand from national ads.

As for the subscriber stuff, I would put some stuff for free to get people there. They have to see content if they want to buy it. That is why newspaper racks are have a glass front. Perhaps just place the AP stuff and small snippets (half the story)to try to invoke people to buy, much like ESPN Insider.

As much as I hate to admit it, ESPN has the best module for the internet. We should all follow their lead with items like Insider/the Mag and ESPN 360's deal with Verizon.

 

We have to start treating national media and local media as the completely different business models that they are. There aren't and probably won't ever be any significant tangible financial benefits from "traffic" for a 20K daily's Web site. Unless Christ Almighty makes an appearance in that small town and decides to stay there permanently, the traffic from afar via search engine will never outweigh the damage the free Web site does to the paid product by making it an optional buy for the locals. The smaller the market, the less competion, and the less reason to give away any of the local-news product. In a small town, I wouldn't give away a damned thing, except as an occasional public service in times of crisis, the way The Miami Herald gives away the print edition when there's been a major hurricane.

 

Hack

It's funny, I was going to suggest the slide shows be free of charge to, like you said, entice people to the site. And I've said it before, any and all AP copy should be free and there should be plenty of it on the website, like double the amount in the print edition. And, it should be updated on the web each and every time there is a write through.

But I'm the only one covering the Punk College Clowns. So why should we give my quotes and weekly column and blog away for free? Readers can't get that anywhere else.

 

Here some help, without giving away specifics.
Our newspaper had its worse year ever.
Our website had its best year ever.
The revenue was 90-10 print.

 

The problem with advertising, especially online advertising is that most newspapers' ad staffs aren't up to the task of selling.

I've read too many times lately that ad salespeople mostly work to keep their own clients and do little work to generate new business.

 

You win, Peter. Across the fucking board!

 

You think? Fuck, our sales/graphics departments can't even build internet ads even if we didn't have lazy fucks who could sell them.

 

There's something to that, but am compelled to point out that time spent keeping
current clientele happy (most importantly, ascertaining that there are ZERO screwups in scheduling and placement) is no less important than prospecting . . . and certainly
more cost-efficient, on a minute-to-minute, dollar-for-dollar basis.

I'm not defending reps who don't even bother to pitch obvious business two inches away from their faces. They need to be confronted.

But anyone who thinks it's a slam-dunk to pick up any new business which happens to
be very happy in terms of where they're currently investing their marketing dollars, during these dire days . . . you're nuts.