Great Ideas from the Americas
Mike Smith, Managing Director, Media Management Center, USA
In a preview of the 2006 version of his "50 Great Ideas from Newspapers in the Americas" series, Mr Smith presented ten ideas -- new products, quality services and fresh approaches -- that can increase circulation.
Here are two of them:
Redefine Your Role. The Globe & Mail is Canada’s largest selling national newspaper, but it decided to needed to redefine its goals in the digital era. So it decided its role was to create better citizens, help make businesses and families stronger and help make communities better. It then established three defining principles -- integration of print and digital, giving readers access and creating a smart company -- and created task forces to try to re-imagine the future of the newspaper in these new roles.
Blow Up the Newspaper. Sometimes it is best to start over. The Spectator in Hamilton, Ontario, did just that; rebuilding from the ground up, it reduced six sections to four, killed business, entertainment and lifestyle sections, turned sports and comics into tabloids, created a daily broadsheet magazine, and reorganized its newsroom. A circulation decline was reversed and circulation jumped 3.9 percent. So did the number of woman and "boomer" readers.
Promotions Made Easy
Pedro Iglesias, Marketing Director, El Mundo, Spain
Like many newspapers, El Mundo is Spain gives away promotional items, like stamp and coin collections, to win new readers. It sells promotional items at a discount as well, although they are more upscale than the usual products -- digital cameras, televisions and other electronic gear.
But El Mundo added a twist -- it created a system where readers registered at sales points to participate in the promotions, eliminating needless waste.
"We were sick and tired of adding something in the paper every day, we didn’t even know if people wanted it," says Mr Iglesias.
El Mundo uses a system of coupons that readers collect to earn their rewards. But first they have to "sign in" at the kiosk, providing their name and contact information. The newspaper then provides coupons only to those who registered.
"There was a 20 percent to 30 percent increase at the point of sale," says Mr Iglesias. "Those who don’t want it, don’t reserve it. We only provide it to those who want it."
Burning the Midnight Oil
Jerry Hill, Circulation Director, St Petersburg Times, USA
What keeps circulation directors up at night?
"How do you grow market share? How do you regain your image in troubled times? What is the long-term circulation picture and what is it going to cost us to grow our subscriber base?"
Mr Hill has obviously been burning the midnight oil. He presented a dozen tactics to grow audience -- and by audience he means everyone who reads the paper, comes to the web site, even attends newspaper-sponsored events. These non-traditional tactics come from newspapers across the United States, and include:
Membership versus subscription. The Sacramento Bee in southern California created a membership web site -- free for paper subscribers and 12 dollars for web only -- that includes promotions such a free tickets and other items and expanded members-only web access.
Consumer-based pricing. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found its multiple pricing offers confused potential customers, so it simplified things. Want the paper seven days a week? It costs 10 dollars a month. Want Sundays only? Also 10 dollars a month. One price fits all.
50 Editorial Strategies for Young Readers
Gianluca Bovoli, Partner Director, ConsulEdis - Innovation, Italy
The World Association of Newspapers asked the Innovation International consulting group to travel the world seeking the best young reader strategies. The result, "Capturing and Captivating Young Readers: 50 Editorial Strategies," is a report providing the most creative ways to reach young readers. (The report can be ordered from WAN by clicking here).
Mr Bovoli’s presentation focused on the lessons learned. Innovation believes it is counterproductive to put young readers in a "ghetto" of special pages inserted in the paper. Instead, the consultancy advocates creating more youthful newspapers, and Mr Bovoli provided dozens of examples of how to do so.
Among them:
Good design, yes, but content first.
Show the reader in the newspaper every day.
New, quick read formats are a must.
Science and technology are hot topics.
Approach soft news as hard news.
Don’t be pessimistic -- brand and content are the future.
Full Truth, Half Price
Jasna Zemijic, CEO, 24 sata, Croatia, and Thomas Dobernigg, Director, Dobernigg & Rupprecht Kommunikation, Germany
Seven months after its launch, 24sata -- the name means "24 hours" -- is the third largest paper in Croatia and has the goal to soon be first in the market.
It isn’t like any other paper. "Our aim is to develop a new generation of tabloid press," says Mr Dobernigg, who helped develop it for the Austrian group Styria Medien.
"The concept can be summed up in three words -- faster, briefer, clearer," he says.
"Young people don’t write letters, they write e-mails and SMS," he says. "They even break up with their girlfriends by SMS. We have to take the new reality into account."
The newspaper is A4 size, with lots of small photos and small blocks of text.
"All the information is available at a quick glance, "says Mr Dobernigg. "I wanted it to be as diverse as the internet, as visual as television. It is like you would see on the internet, small units, small boxes of information."
