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| TPA Advertising Director
I read a good friend’s column recently, “Has the Newspaper Industry Turned the Corner?”, and it got me curious about the one thing we seem to have forgotten. The industry is so wrapped up with all the new electronic devices and methods of delivery we’ve just put aside our main core product, the newspaper.
Now before you all get outraged with that statement, let me explain … we (newspapers) must find ways to effectively and efficiently incorporate revenue streams and content with mobile devices, social media and all the “others” that creep into the equation, but at what cost? Not “all” things are good for all!
Yes, newspapers are upgrading computers, hardware and printing methods and rightly so. We need to be current in our methods of printing and delivery. Our websites are improving in content, design and readability and some revenue streams. And those are all good.
But as we put pressure on the sales staffs to sell websites and mobile, what training have we provided? Do they know how to sell it? And have we “bundled” the price to include print and online or mobile? Yes, the advertiser does prefer options and we should provide. But in this whole process some things will get neglected, because where the emphasis is placed, that’s where the concentration will focus.
Just like special section deadlines, when the deadline approaches the focus on the daily or weekly newspaper gets put on the back burner and then we try to figure out what happened to the ads in the paper that week.
Just as a salesperson’s account load becomes too large to effectively and efficiently manage, so does all the “other opportunities” thrown their way. As staffs are reduced to save a dollar, so shall the revenue stream.
So this is our dilemma. We have veteran salespeople who are not savvy with technological advances — they don’t have Facebook accounts, maybe not even have a computer at home, but they are expected to sell these new opportunities. So, do you fire them and lose the print experience or coach them up? The 20-something new salesperson doesn’t have a clue about print but can talk all day about mobile devices, social media and computers. That person really has no interest in print, only wants to sell electronic but will suffer through print sales just because he/she is told too. How is this person any different from the veteran?
Until there is a balance of revenue streams for print and online, we better not forget what product brought us to the dance. For when that day happens — as the bell strikes midnight and the carriage turns into a pumpkin — that glass slipper will be difficult to find again.
We better start marketing ourselves: telling our readers that newspapers aren’t dying but thriving. Every business goes through some revolutionary change and those who adapt survive but they never forget the core. |
