Time: How to Save Your Newspaper

it's hell to die.

 

Ben. I'm sorry. But our ad sales staff is flat out fucking lazy.

I have pitched to both our sales manager and publisher - at different times - placing still ads at the beginning of our slide shows. I pitched that idea in February and March of 2008. It's now Feb. 11 and no still ads.

These lazy fucks should feel the wrath of the axe, too.

 

I suggested ad prospects, such as contacting the cable company carrying the CBS affiliate to run ads when DirecTV dropped the CBS affiliate due to a contract dispute. Or pre-roll ads for video or slideshows. Nothing, even when we would charge $25 or something close to it.

I see the ad staff get the reserved spots right next to the building, but only one of them ever seems to leave the office during the day.

 

Often, wrath toward ad sales staffs is not necessarily misdirected, but understand that it's damn hard to sell ANYTHING right now. Nobody's buying.

 

The most motivated ad sales people tend to get commission, but the Internet ads are so cheap that they can't make decent money from selling them and they risk steering their customers away from the product that does pay a living. Also, you are assuming that local retailers are eager to buy Internet ads and believe they have value. News isn't the only thing that some people believe ought to be free.

 

There's a fine line, and most situations must be evaluated case-by-case. Being asked to go out to troll for short-money accounts in seasonal businesses . . . accounts in
sectors which might well be expected to stiff you one-third (or more) of the time . . .
that's insulting, to everyone involved. The rep is scraping for pennies, while being asked
to take the heat for reaching out to deadbeats. Everyone gets pissed off, and nobody wins (except the deadbeat clients).

 

Well, that's just it, Ben. An outsider may think, why can't they sell an ad to Store X a block from the paper? And the answer is, they could. Store X will buy the ad. But Store X will ignore the bill for the ad. They pretty much know the market. They know which stores won't pay. And of the stores that will pay, they tend to have a good idea of what the yearly ad budget is. The budget is the budget -- if a business advertises in the football tab, it will reduce its advertising some other time to make up for it. If it buys an Internet ad, it will buy a smaller print ad.

 

All the more reason to scrap the free content online.

 

Disagree.... they want to call the writer an idiot or get a personal interaction or satisfy their egos, they will pay.

 

Winner. I am so up for charging people $5/month to interact with me on a message board.

Pony up everyone, pm for payment information.