Community Journal

2013 Volume VI, Edition I

Interlink photo/Helen Sosniecki

Enjoying the Texas Tradeshow

Christopher Maher, left, and Tim Acosta, center, both of the Kingsville Record, stopped by the Interlink booth at the Texas Press Association Midwinter Convention and Tradeshow in Houston in January and visited with Interlink Technical Support Services Supervisor Che’ Eddie. For more photos from the Texas Tradeshow, click here. Also, check out our photos from the Iowa Convention, click here.

A Great Success, Revenue Aside

By William E. (Bill) Garber
Interlink founder

William GarberIs anything a great success, revenue aside?

I read a Forbes column http://onforb.es/WGw8dK recently that quoted Robert Thomson, the exec in charge of Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, claiming it was ‘a great success in most respects, revenue aside.’

Say what?

Never mind that The Daily was still losing between $10 million and $20 million on an annualized basis at the time of its closure, even aftershedding 30% of its staff.  “That’s irrelevant to the ongoing, enduring contribution The Daily has made to News Corporation and to me as an executive,” Thomson said, adding that “the company ought to be engaging in more such experiments.”

Now for the shocker, Murdoch has just put this exec in charge of all of Murdoch’s newspapers following the planned ‘publishing’ spin-off.

“The problem is we’ve been a little too focused on the threats and not enough on the opportunities. What we should be doing is almost reverse-engineering it –the cleverness, the originality, the utility of those new techniques,” Thomson is quoted.

Well, we absolutely must focus on the opportunities rather than the threats. But reverse engineering cleverness, originality and utility of the ‘new techniques’ is a horrible waste of time. Here is why.

Look, if hope is never a strategy, cleverness and originality and techniques are never compelling long-term. They may turn your head, but they don’t turn you around day after day.

In publishing, it is repeat consumers that are required.

And The Daily, as original and clever as it may have been, and it really wasn’t all that original or clever, it never rose to becoming a daily digital habit.

The notion of “daily digital habit” is what new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is focusing on in reviving that company’s fortunes. “Yahoo will focus on developing or redesigning roughly a dozen products in the months and years to come, each built around people's ‘daily digital habits,’ Mayer said.” http://on.mash.to/ZWLqIr

I like that concept.

A lot.

Today, Interlink clients are creating great weekly newsprint habits. Indeed over the past year, 20% of Interlink licensees increased the number of subscribers even in touch economic times.

The simple truth is, with Robert Thomson’s brains and Rupert Murdoch’s give or take $100 million The Daily couldn’t create a product worth a dime a day to people by the million.

Meanwhile, community newspapers have a huge edge looking ahead because they are rooted in the place where they publish, like absolutely nothing else.

“One analyst asked Mayer whether Yahoo would go after more of the local ad market. ‘Local ... is very hard to do well,’ she said, and as the former head of local services at Google, she would know. ‘I think our local offerings are good at the moment [and] I think it's hard to take that next step to provide even deeper functionality ... [It's] probably not an area where we're going to invest moving forward,’ she said.”

I’d say community publishers are well defended when it comes to continuing to dominate their market when inventing new services digitally distributed.

Subscribers are always going to be the core value for community publishing enterprises. So focusing on bringing current newsprint services to a larger share of the market not only improves the immediate business health, it widens access to a larger market for the new digitally distributed services yet to be created in the future.

Grow your circulation by, say, 10% and you increase your costs. That said, circulation growth is a great story to tell your advertisers. And, part of that story can easily include announcing a new ‘slightly higher’ advertising rate. “Only 5%” sure sounds favorable when circulation is up, while advertising rate increases on falling circulation is a much different challenge.

Growing circulation, then, is a great platform for growing core revenue; revenue that is essential when investing in the future.

Making circulation growth something of a habit sure makes it easier as well as more certain.

Interlink’s SmartSampling™ technology, coupled with CDS addresses for the market’s ZIP Codes give today’s publisher a tool and a database that is proven to grow market penetration in an immediately profitable way, while setting the stage for all future acts in the drama that describes community publishing’s future.

While the future won’t look like a newspaper spewed across a digital display, it absolutely will serve the very same market. You’ve probably been watching for hints at what the future may look like, and Clay Christensen is making sense to me even if the picture remains sketchy at best. http://bit.ly/ZWZp0O

Whatever the future is, developing a community newspaper’s market penetration will not only be profitable right now, it will be enduringly valuable.

Thinking about the needs of the market place will help create a more valuable newspaper. Even more importantly, it is at the core of setting up for future digital services in terms of what to provide and at what frequency.

I happen to drive a Subaru that is manufactured in a plant that has zero waste going to a landfill. Zero. Focusing on how to increase market penetration using SmartSampling™ also generates zero waste. One hundred percent of the thinking, the work, and the results are reusable in your newspaper’s future digital services.

While the digital future may not be obvious just now, it is indisputable that more subscribers to the present community newspaper that a growing number of subscribers already value is worth more than today’s effort. And, with SmartSampling™ there really isn’t all that much effort. It is, rather, pretty much a weekly habit. Not all that different from how subscribers think of their weekly newspaper.

Interlink photo/Che’ Eddie

Visiting at the Texas Convention

Interlink Senior Sales and Marketing Manager Helen Sosniecki visits with Tim Waltner, left, publisher of the Freeman (S.D.) Courier, and Marc Richard, vice president and operations manager of Fackelman Newspaper Group, publishers of the Ennis Daily News. Waltner, the recipient of the 2012 International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors’ Eugene Cervi Award, was the Hall of Fame speaker at the Texas Midwinter Convention.

Reports that we are dying
are greatly exaggerated

By Cheryl Wormley
President, International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors

Cheryl WormleyBack in 1897, James Ross Clemens was ill. Not-so-careful passing on of information resulted in word that Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, was dying in London. When an enterprising reporter decided to check on Twain before publishing his demise, the author responded, “The report of my death was greatly exaggerated.”

Morley Safer, during his Jan. 6 “60 Minutes” report about the newspaper industry, glibly stated, “The facts of life are that newspapers are folding all over the country. It's a dying business.” His example was the New Orleans newspaper, The Times-Picayune, which recently cut back from publishing seven days a week to three days.

When it comes to newspapers, there are two cousins – large metro dailies and community newspapers. The latter includes weeklies and small dailies (publishing three or fewer days a week). Safer as well as reporters and broadcasters from media giants across the United States and around the world owe it to the public – and to community newspaper owners and staffers – to perform due diligence to determine which of the newspaper cousins is near death and which is alive. Only then, should they should report their findings.

It is the large metro daily newspapers, which make up less than 5 percent of all U.S. newspapers, that are struggling from declines in readership and advertising, printing less often or ceasing publication entirely.

While it is painful to see our metro-daily-newspaper cousins faltering, we, the community newspapers, are not dying. Like Twain, community newspapers say, “Reports of our dying are greatly exaggerated.”

Much has been published and broadcast about the decline of metro dailies. It is time to shine a spotlight on the health and vigor of community newspapers and on our role in rural and suburban communities across the country.

Readership of our newspapers, mostly weeklies, is increasing and new community newspapers are being birthed. That the great investor Warren Buffett bought more than 60 community newspapers in 2012 suggests there is present and future value in the weekly and small-daily arm of the industry.

Community newspapers are doing well because people want to read about the actions of their town council and local school board, the results of high school sporting events and what’s happening in the business community. Readers turn to community newspapers for public notices, for obituaries and police reports and for engagement, wedding, anniversary and birth announcements. They expect keen and thoughtful editorials as well as a forum for their own opinions – letters to the editor. They read the advertisements, look at every photo and clip articles and photos to post on bulletin boards and hang on refrigerators.

A 2011 survey by the National Newspaper Association and the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism found that 74 percent of people in areas served by newspapers with circulations under 15,000 read one of those papers each week. They spend nearly 40 minutes reading the paper. Then, they share their newspaper with 2.3 more people.

We are watchdogs in our communities. We protect the public’s right to know and keep our readers informed about their communities – essential elements in a democracy.

As 21st century technology keeps enhancing the gathering and dissemination of news and information, community newspapers aren’t standing idly by. We are in the fray, taking advantage of the immediacy that technology offers. We have developed revenue-producing websites, and we interact with our communities and our readers on email, Facebook and Twitter.

Community newspapers are very much alive. As Bill Tubbs, publisher of The North Scott Press and a member of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, wrote in an editorial Jan. 16, “Morley Safer, you’ve done us wrong, but here’s an offer you can’t refuse. Come to Eldridge (Iowa) and spend a week with our staff.”

Any of the more than 8,000 community weekly newspapers in the U.S. extend a similar invitation not just to Safer but also to everyone who wants to see the healthy cousin. Interview the folks in Freeman, S.D., about the Freeman Courier; the high school students in Pittsfield, Ill., about the Pike Press; the families in Falmouth, Maine, about The Forecaster; the government officials in Espanola, N.M., about the Rio Grande Sun; or the business owners in Woodstock, Ga., about The Cherokee Ledger-News and set the record straight.

Cheryl Wormley is publisher of The Woodstock (Ill.) Independent and president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. She can be contacted at c.wormley@thewoodstockindependent.com.

Newspaper owners Larry and Sharon Hiatt look over a recent edition of the newspaper they started in Columbus, Kan., after moving there to retire.

Larry and Sharon Hiatt

Subscriptions vs. Ads

Kansas publisher launches tri-weekly newspaper
with revenue business model centered on subscriptions

By Angela Kurtz
Associate Marketing Manager

Ben Franklin’s Theory of Operation.
For the record, I should state that Benjamin Franklin neither promoted any real theory of operations nor endorsed one, at least not that I am aware.  However, Larry Hiatt, owner and publisher of Columbus News Report in Columbus, Kan., uses this descriptive term to explain the business model under which he set about building and growing his community newspaper.

Located in the southeast corner of the state, less than 30 miles from Joplin, Mo., the Hiatts publish the Columbus News Report three times a week serving a population of just over 3,200 residents with roughly 4,500 in their trade territory.

He and his wife and business partner, Sharon, took an atypical approach to starting their community paper, initially pursuing a subscription-based revenue stream in lieu of advertising dollars to create the financial foundation of Columbus News Report.

So, what’s the link to Benjamin Franklin?

According to Larry, during the colonial times of newspaper printing, there was no large advertising base of grocery stores and auto dealerships to sustain the printing and delivery costs of community papers.  There was simply news; news uniquely relevant to the individuals of that local community and not provided elsewhere.

Larry and Sharon firmly believe offering a quality newspaper, filled with information and stories and photos that community residents want to read, is not only worth the price of the paper but is sufficient to sustain a publication.  This nontraditional approach to revenue growth guided the Hiatts through the early stages of growing their business by focusing on earning subscriptions and not advertising dollars.

The Hiatts had returned home to Columbus to enjoy retirement, but not long after their arrival, Larry said that the daily paper that had been serving multiple locations decided to close its Columbus office and merged with another paper in the area. Larry attributes the move to the diminishing advertising base in Columbus.

As the former daily both merged and changed frequency in October 2010, Larry and Sharon published their first paper that same month.  Having been in the industry for more than 50 years, the Hiatts fully understood the commitment and the level of risk they were undertaking by starting their business in their retirement years, and during tough, economic times.  But because of their experience and industry knowledge, they were quickly able to identify their costs and calculate how many subscribers were needed to sustain the publication in the absence of large amounts of advertising dollars.

Knowing their breakeven point, they targeted city and rural residences, and individuals in surrounding communities by mailing six issues to each of these groups over several weeks’ time.  Larry quickly points out that he and Sharon knew they were taking a financial risk by not aggressively seeking advertising dollars and that earning revenue purely on subscriptions “is definitely not the easy way to do it!”

However, their dedication to providing a quality paper filled with local information including sports, school lunch menus, city council and school board meetings drove Larry and Sharon to successfully obtain several hundred subscriptions within the first few months of operation.  Within a year’s time, at a 3-month subscription rate of $10 per month for 13 issues, subscriptions rose to over 1,000 for their community of about 3,200 residents.

Columbus News Report typically runs eight pages Mondays and Wednesdays with Friday’s paper usually running 10 pages.  The Hiatts also publish special editions about four times a year highlighting seasonal activities and local events for the community such as Columbus Days and a Christmas edition.  These editions are usually 14 to 20 pages.  

Now, I would be remiss to advance the theory that the Hiatts completely ignored advertising dollars as a source of revenue. That is certainly not the case.

Larry and Sharon understood the importance of those dollars, but their focus continued to be on producing a quality publication community residents would happily purchase to get the local information that mattered to them.  With the success of growing their subscriptions, advertisers came to the Columbus News Report, and now advertising dollars makes up about half the total revenue for the publication.

Larry and Sharon have seen their share of challenges these past two and a half years, not the least of which is starting a new business in an industry that many outsiders believe is quickly fading.

The Hiatt’s experience, however, is the antithesis to this doomsday belief, and Larry considers their commitment to producing and delivering a quality product to the consumer is what sustains them and has brought them success.  This notion of delivering value to the consumer is certainly not exclusive to the newspaper industry, and as Larry believes, the newspaper industry has lost sight of this.

Perhaps the future success of the community newspaper lies in the dedication to deliver quality, local news, at a value determined by the consumer, every time you deliver the paper.

It’s working for Larry and Sharon.

“I try to put the same things Ben Franklin would have put in his paper.  What we’re trying to do here is recreate the identity of our local community,” Larry said.

Survey: Community newspaper readers
continue to prefer papers for local news

From National Newspaper Association

COLUMBIA, MO—Community newspaper readers, surveyed recently, still say they prefer their local papers for getting their news and information. The survey was conducted in small U.S. towns and cities where the circulation size of the local newspaper was 15,000 or less.

The survey was conducted for the National Newspaper Association by the research arm of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. This is the survey’s seventh year.

NNA President Merle Baranczyk, publisher of the Mountain Mail in Salida, CO, said the survey shows that without a doubt, people read their community newspapers.

“The numbers are self-evident. They indicate the level of connectedness people have with their community newspaper,” Baranczyk said. “From year to year, the studies have shown that people believe in their local papers, for the news they need and the advertising they rely on.”

Since 2005, NNA has done research on how people read and what they think about their local newspaper. Results have been consistent over the years, even as sample and community sizes have been adjusted slightly.

Of those who participated in the survey, 52 percent were daily newspaper readers, and 48 percent were non-daily readers. The circulation sizes of the newspapers ranged from 309 to 14,943.

The trend for readership of community newspapers is consistent with earlier surveys. The study showed that 71 percent of the respondents read a community newspaper at least once a week. Analysis showed that readership of local newspapers was significantly and positively associated with age, suggesting that older adults read local newspapers significantly more than younger adults. This finding is consistent with those of the NNA surveys in 2010 and 2011, and those reported by the Pew Research Center in 2012.

The pass-along rate in the 2012 survey was 2.18 people, compared to 2.33 in 2011.

On average, readers of the 2012 survey spent 39.92 minutes reading local newspapers, up slightly more than the 38.95 minutes in 2011 and 37.5 minutes in 2010.

Similar to previous research, 96 percent of readers paid for their newspaper.

  • 75% read all or most of their newspaper. Compared to 73 percent in 2011 and 78 percent in 2010.
  • 43.8% keep their paper for more than 10 days.
  • 77.4% read the paper for local news and information.

Respondents who had children were also asked whether those children—between the ages of 11 and 21—would read local newspapers. Of the households where there were children in the age group, 18 percent read a local newspaper at least once a week.

Local news content is important, the study showed. More than half of readers (56 percent) had either clipped a story from the print newspaper or provided a link from the newspaper’s website to save or send to a friend or family member in the past 12 months.

The majority of local readers continued to regard community newspapers as highly valuable and important sources information about their communities.

  • 92% of readers thought local newspapers were informative.
  • 83% agreed that they and their families relied on the newspapers for local news and information.
  • 84% of readers (and their families) would look forward to reading the newspapers.
  • 69% thought the newspapers provided valuable local shopping and advertising information.
  • 75% agreed that local newspapers entertained them.
  • Nearly half of readers (46 percent) used the newspapers for their political and voting decisions.

Of those who had access to the Internet, 49 percent reported that they had “never” read local news online, compared to 48 percent in 2011, suggesting that residents in small towns and cities still rely on print newspapers for local news more than through online platforms.

Of those who used online sources for local news, 59 percent “sought out” specific local news, higher than in 2011 (52 percent). In addition, 30 percent “happened to come across it,” and 11 percent answered “both.”

The survey shows that 47 percent of online users would choose a newspaper’s website as their favored source of information for local news. Twenty-four percent said they would select a local TV website. And 21 percent said they would use an independent site such as Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc. It should be noted that 2 percent of online users said they would rely on social networking sites, and 5 percent would use a radio stations’ site for local news.

More survey results, and a summary of this survey, are available at http://tinyurl.com/community-papers-still-tops

‘Every Door Direct Mail’ a new revenue
opportunity for your newspaper

By Mitzi B. Welborn
Mailing Solutions Specialist
U.S. Postal Service

With Every Door Direct Mail® service from the U.S. Postal Service®, potential customers can reach the customers who matter most to your business – in nearby neighborhoods. Postage will be as low as $.170 – and you won’t even need to know individual names or street addresses. You can simply identify the neighborhoods you want to target, and your printed piece is delivered to every active address in that target area.

You probably have seen that paragraph on websites, in print media, on television and heard from carriers and/or Postmasters many times. When it was initially launched, many printers and list providers saw the program as competition and not as an opportunity.

However, since then, many of them have become the Postal Service’s biggest sellers of Every Door Direct Mail. Some of the biggest online printers have embraced this program and are offering turnkey programs to both small and large business customers.  Franchise printers like The UPS Stores, PostNet Stores, Minuteman Press, and Allegra printing have added Every Door Direct Mail to their sales menu, along with many others.

If you have not considered “Every Door Direct Mail” as another tool in your advertising arsenal, it is not too late.

Many newspapers throughout the country have added this product offering to their advertising portfolio. They have presented it to new businesses that want to introduce themselves to the community or promote a one-time event to a specific targeted area. It is great for announcing new store openings, sales, or other major events in solo or in conjunction with their newspaper advertising.

For weekly newspapers, it allows you to offer a marketing program to potential clients who want the flexibility of distribution on the days that your newspaper is not in the home. You can sell it to your business customers who want to reach homes during the week for a weekend event.  The Postal Service’s new and enhanced website provides everything that you need to execute your customer’s request, except the printing and newspapers can handle the rest.

As a trusted member of the community, you can offer the personal touch that many of your customers like. Newspapers are rooted into the community which they serve. They are active participants in the communities. You know the demographics and the neighborhoods that your neighbors and neighborhood businesses would like to target. You have the printing capability to provide your customers with hands-on customer service that they have grown accustomed to.

Don’t let this new revenue stream for your company pass by. Learn more at www.usps.com/everydoordirectmail.

Mitzi Welborn may be reached at mitzi.b.welborn@usps.gov