Sin number one: Not placing value, real value, on each and every subscriber? ..... If you do value each one do your follow behind every single stop in a timely manner of a day or two after they stop? Not a mailed card asking them to come back, not just someone in your office checking out why they did the stop, we are talking about a phone call from preferably your editor to the person asking why they stopped and what the newspaper was not providing that made the decision to stop. The caller should have on hand some circulation subscription offer to get them back and they need to be sincere in their approach to the former subscriber. After all the newspaper is dependent on each and every subscriber to survive. A call from your editor or even better the publisher shows how serious your newspaper is about their dropping the newspaper and how important they are to your business. Tell your editor, if they balk at this idea, to either accept they are part of an ongoing business or they need an attitude adjustment hour from the publisher. Treat circulation customers like you would a big advertiser who has told you they will not be using your product anymore.
Sin number two: Not offering a three year paid in advance deal for every subscription renewal. ... Here is the concept that all salespeople understand. The "sale" is the hardest part of the process of getting a new customer and the most time consuming. If you can cut down the number of "sales" you have to do by not having to do them every year or so then you save time, money, and frankly will need less employees to accomplish this task. Make sure the paid in advance is on a credit card if at all possible, it is easier to process and you get your money up front. Also keep that number on file so as to make the sale even easier next time this sub comes up so the customer will not have to go search down their credit card. The deal here is if they buy three years paid in advance they get a nice discount. One nice part about this three year in advance deal is you get all that lovely cash sitting in your account up front that could help you with cash flow issues. You give up some of the sale for the reduction in expense and the ability to have the early additional cash flow.
Sin number three: Not tasking everyone and we do mean everyone, in the newspaper to sell subscriptions...... When someone calls the newspaper they have in essence said they value your product since they are doing some type of interaction with your company. Therefore if during that phone call someone does not ask them if they are a subscriber then you are being foolish with the opportunity they have offered you. Preferably the first person who answered the phone should make the pitch, to avoid having the caller being asked multiple times. The proposal should again be the deal of paying up front with a credit card and again offer three years before going with less time if needed to make the sale. Let's be honest here you absolutely must make someone responsible to try and make this sale since responsibility is the key to getting things done and give them some incentive. Depending on your circulation size it should be no less than $10 commission per sale for the three year sale on a credit card. Going back to everyone selling subs in your newspaper, put everyone on the commission structure of $10 per sale and tell them yes it is ok to ask outside the office about new subscribers. From time to time to keep the idea of selling newspapers top of mind do sales contests with added incentives of days off or free meals at a local steakhouse who advertises with you now.
Sin number four: Not grasping that circulation numbers are likely more important that you realize and this goes back to the three year subs..... Yes the money flowing into your newspaper from subscriptions is important to your cash flow, but frankly that is secondary to where numbers really hurt you. First and foremost those increased or decreased circulation numbers impact an area you likely have never thought about earlier and that is preprint revenue. Every time you lose circulation numbers the number of preprints you can effectively deliver to your subscribers for your preprint customers goes down. Here is a quick exercise. If you are delivering 10 inserts per week and lose 500 customers and are charging $40 per thousand you not only lose the circulation revenue you have lost over $10000 annually in advertising revenue. If this is a daily newspaper that can deliver upwards to 50 inserts or more per week then you could be talking $50000 plus in lost revenue. There was a time when newspaper were not delivering so many preprints weekly and no one considered the impact on advertising revenue and you still might be caught in that mindset, if so you need to reset how you think about numbers.
Sin number five: Not already having flattened your organization by getting rid of dept. heads and using the remaining cash flow to either enhance profit or more importantly hire some non dept. head employees to do things like sell subscriptions..... One other idea here is go ahead and put your advertising manager in charge of your circulation dept and hold them responsible with incentives to get the numbers up. They understand sales, they understand the concept of the sale, and they of course can connect those circulation numbers to that preprint revenue too. Advertising managers also understand the other concept of how much circulation numbers effect ROP sales. Higher circulation means more eyeballs looking at ads and responding to those ads by going to the local retailers who notice the added customer count through their door and how valuable, or less so, an ad published in your newspaper can be to their business. Losing eyeballs is not a direct impact on ROP revenue like insert revenue, but over time it can be more deadly to your business.
Sin number six: The use of telemarketing to gain numbers in circulation..... In my thirty years of working in newspapers I have NEVER seen where telemarketing, notably by outside vendors, has done anything more than produce churn. Customers sold by telemarketing do not stick and frankly most times cost more than you actually get in the end. Besides telemarketing generally gets paid up front and leave your operation to do the real collecting of the subscription sale. Instead of telemarketing use kiosks sales locally. Hire someone, full time preferably, or at least get someone who does this work on the outside to be out there every Saturday and Sunday pushing your subscriptions. If you can not find someone, offer the opportunity to someone in your newspaper to make extra money on weekends. If you do decide to hire a full time employee to do this have them out there every day selling your product. In most every market there are literally hundreds of places to place kiosks, grocery stores, dept. stores, tire dealers, mobile phone stores, etc. there is NO store no matter how big or small off limits to work a kiosk. Be at local festival and local get together's of any kind day after day. Again having someone who is on your staff doing this is best in my opinion as they can be out there everyday and you can keep tabs on what is going on with the process and having someone responsible make sure the job gets done. When approaching a potential retail site for placing your kiosk get with the store manager and make some deal to buy some of their gift certificates to hand out as premiums for new subscribers. You get the new customer the store gets some certificate sales and some almost guaranteed in store sales that day. Have some premiums too for your off store kiosk sales such as at a local festival. Maybe a t-shirt or some gift certificates from one your very best advertising customers is a plus for obvious reasons.
Sin number seven: Expecting your circulation revenue to cover more than just your circulation costs..... When we say "costs" we mean the actual act of delivering your product either by carrier or mail. The circulation dept. is not a profit center anymore, it is a numbers game. Remember numbers, as in preprint numbers as in eyeballs to see advertising sales. That means for the most part NO circulation price increases period unless mail costs, circulation materials costs, or wage costs go up. You might even consider absorbing those extra costs in lieu of keeping those subscription numbers up since they are more important to advertising revenue long term. Let's consider there are numerous printed advertising vehicles in your market now and they are more than likely free to the reader so competing against those free competitors and trying to do more than covering cost is foolish since they are totally dependent on ad sales.
Circulation numbers are crucial to the long term survival of your newspaper and partaking in any of the above sins is placing that long term survival in peril. Refrain from these sins and do not allow them to be temptation again.
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