Common Interests for a Diverse Audience

Newspapers everywhere share common challenges, says Ms Gibbs -- retaining readers, dealing with budgetary pressures , capturing new readers.

"It is imperative that we continue to position ourselves as the hometown newspaper," she says. "We must satisfy our readers and advertisers to grow market share for our future."

The Telegraph Herald, a 34,000-circulation daily, has undertaken a successful programme of book publishing and community events marketing to find additional revenue streams, but also to strengthen its link with readers and advertisers.

"We have made well over three-quarters of a million dollars in net new money over the last seven years. I anticipate in the next 36 months we will top one million dollars through book publishing and events in our marketplace in net new revenue. Yes, the money is terrific and needed, though more importantly, it is the reader and advertiser connect that is priceless."

Ms Gibbs presented promotional ideas to generate new revenue and grow market share.

Here are two of them:

 A "Salute to Women" lunch for women of the community, an event that was successful in its own right but also was the catalyst for developing a new magazine called "Her."

 "Business Times", a free monthly business magazine -- also successful in its own right, and led to the development of a trade show.

To Hell with CRM

Northcliffe Newspapers invested three million pounds in Customer Relationship Management strategies to raise circulation at one of its biggest newspapers, The Leicester Mercury, and learned a very expensive lesson.

"There was no discernable difference in base sales and readership. Eighty-six percent of all new orders were canceled in twelve months," says Mr Glynn. "We have concluded it is exceptionally difficult to build loyalty through price and other offers on low cost items like newspapers, particularly if the market is mature and the product is well known."

In fact, offers, prices cuts and incentives carry the danger of devaluing the product and weakening the relationship with readers, he says.

So how does one create loyalty for a newspaper?

Even though he dismisses CRM, Mr Glynn concedes that good relationships are, in fact, central to any campaign to create loyalty. But it is the editor and the ad director, rather than the marketers, who help build that loyalty.

"You build relationships through copy providers," he says. Editorial, yes, but he emphasizes the importance of not forgetting advertising, "which isn’t only about revenue generation. It is about relationship generation."

Fusing Ink & Bytes

Everyone has become a multitasker, managing to read, talk on the telephone and watch television at the same time.

"Our redesign of the international editions of the Wall Street Journal acknowledge that you and we live in a multimedia world that spans the globe," says Ms Abernathy.

Both the Wall Street Journal Europe and Wall Street Journal Asia were relaunched one month ago in tabloid format, but the smaller size hardly begins to describe the changes at the newspaper.

One of the biggest changes was integrating web and paper so that users can move between the two platforms easily, benefiting from the best attributes of both. The paper version is filled with URL references, and most of the financial statistics were moved online, leaving more room for stories in the paper.

One thing that did not change: advertising rates. Despite the smaller size, research shows that advertising impact remains the same if the same proportions are maintained. Worth noting if you are considering a compact conversion.

Reader-driven Change at Le Monde

If more evidence is needed that newspapers are listening carefully to their readers, one need only look at Le Monde, France’s great grey lady and paper of record.

Following the publication of a controversial book by two former staffers that criticized the paper’s corporate and political culture, readers also began raising disturbing questions.

"There were high expectations and criticism from the readers," says Mr Le Boucher. "They were saying we had become very ’Franco-French’, that we were too inward looking, we were lacking in ideas and diversity and were too predictable."

The "new" Le Monde did not undergo a format page but the changes are apparent: a larger typeface, more and better use of photography, and a re-organization of the paper.

Page 2 is devoted to editorials, followed by the best story of the day on page 3. A new science and environment section has been added. There is more diversity on every page.

"We want to try to win back the readers that are leaving us," says Mr Le Boucher. "The changes were made so our sales would rise exponentially. The main reason was to stem the erosion of readers."

From Broadsheet to Berliner

First there were the broadsheet-to-tabloid conversions in Britain that launched the worldwide compact trend. And now Berliner has come to London.

The Guardian’s new compact edition differs from The Independent and The Times, and Mr Sands believes it offers advantages that tabloids do not.

"The basic problem for quality papers in tabloid is that you have to have only one story on Page 1," he says. "That is a big reason we did not choose tabloid. We did not feel it could fulfill either the journalistic nor the commercial objectives of the paper."

Mr Sands’ presentation focused on why the paper changed, what the new offer entails, and how it was launched to the public.

The paper, which changed on 12 September, has seen circulation rise from 342,000 copies in August to 404,000 copies in September. Eighty percent of readers and non-readers believe the change was positive.

Look Before You Leap

Any newspaper considering a format change should first look to the format change research from the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project of the World Association of Newspapers.

WAN has been studying the changes for the past two years, and counts 61 newspapers that moved to compact editions last year alone.

Mr Byrne presented the lessons learned from the early adopters. Perhaps the most important is this: don’t automatically reduce advertising rates because of the smaller format.

"Research demonstrates that, indexed against a broadsheet page, the tabloid with the same size advertisement can actually improve the results of advertisements," says Mr Byrne. "In almost all cases, the impact of tabloid advertisements were at least the same as the impact of the broadsheet advertisement."

Mr Byrne offer a 10-step checklist for any newspaper considering a compact conversion: test the market before and after changing; make sure any conversion is part of a wider strategy; consider the advertising implications; study the opportunities for better design and navigation; communicate thoroughly with readers, advertisers and distributors, anticipate and respond to criticism, consider the problems of sectioning, consider new web widths, re-visit the rate card, and be realistic and don’t expect circulation miracles.

More format research from the SFN project at www.futureofthenewspaper.com.