New products require attention and focus

A trip to Galveston Island was the Cooke family vacation most every year growing up, so I love that place. My father, Bill Cooke, would rent a cabin on the west end of the island to get away from the grind of publishing The Rockdale Reporter. We’d spend a week or more hunting sharks’ teeth, listening to Willie Nelson, sunning and reading paperbacks. Having followed him in the publishing ranks, I realize the value of doing a whole lot of nothing while on vacation. The downtime and the waves restored our souls.

I just returned from Galveston and the South Texas Press Association convention, held at Moody Gardens. We heard some good programs which got me thinking about newspapers’ products and the need to diversify.

John Garrett, founder of Community Impact, gave a presentation on his approach. He publishes a monthly print paper in many markets but has a daily presence with his website and email newsletters. His reader-friendly, graphics-laden approach has proven popular, and he has built a large audience of 1,000,000-plus homes. He treats his newsletters as a separate product and has a goal for revenue growth in that area, just like his print.

I always try to see what we at weekly papers can borrow from our larger brethren, whether it’s Community Impact, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. 

Email newsletters are an easy new product to start and have proven a great way to stay in front of audiences between print publication cycles. They can grow to become a significant revenue enhancer. If you’re a weekly, start a newsletter on an off day or two times per week. You’ll be surprised how well these will be received. In Fredericksburg, we had 1,000 e-newsletter subscribers 12-plus years ago and we’ve built it to 16,000 today. Not bad for a town of 12,000 population.

Events, such as the talks hosted by the Texas Tribune, are also a product, and bring in sponsorship dollars. The Galveston Daily News hosts a “Press Run 5K & 10K” event that brings in substantial revenue.

Our friends at The Taylor Press do regular videos, another product, and they sell sponsor ad space. I love Jason Hennington’s “The Glimpse,” which is a short video look at what the paper’s staff is working on. Jason already has the “J. Jonah Jameson” grouchy editor personality — a fun watch.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal do things we can’t replicate, as they have teams of software engineers and a global subscriber base. But we can copy their newsletters, take tips from their podcast models (it doesn’t have to be daily) and look at how we might mimic the popularity of their cooking or games apps.

One journalist on LinkedIn recently remarked, “You need to present your journalism as a product. Assess what your audience wants. Find your product-market fit.” That means trying new things, but it may also mean to stop doing other time-consuming tasks we do “because we’ve always done it that way.” (Long, play-by-play stories of a game that took place six days ago are one example.) In times of rapid change, that attitude can be a killer.

And we all need to start offering another product — digital advertising. If you haven’t already, get familiar with it and get busy selling. If you don’t, someone else will. 

At a recent advertising meeting for Moser Community Media, we were told to let our customers know up front you’ll be learning about digital advertising right along with them. There’s no shame in admitting we don’t know it all, but these products are too important to ignore in today’s increasingly digital world. If we’re not learning, we’re dying.

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I encourage every TPA member to 1) support your regional association, and 2) register for the June 20-22 Texas Press Association Convention & Trade Show June 20-22 in College Station. 

We’ll hear about some cool new industry tools and hear talks on the future and how we can take advantage of the new opportunities out there. I can’t wait to hear the lineup of speakers. We’ll also honor some great people in our industry with the Hall of Fame inductees. I always get a boost of energy from hearing experts and being around my contemporaries.

I was listening to an audio book, “Dual Transformation,” and there was a line we all need to keep in mind. I’m paraphrasing, but it stated that despite the massive and even damaging change going on in our industry, we’re also at the forefront of figuring out a new way to do things. It’s time we get out of our comfort zones and try new things, learn what works with readers and advertisers, and enjoy the ride, bumpy as it may be. When we went from hot type to offset, we still made it. In spite of the advent of radio, television and the Internet, newspaper operations are still the ones providing the majority of the legitimate news in our markets.

Let’s stay confident in our products and keep the faith! We’ll all figure this out together. 

What I’m Reading

“Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the great Southern writers of our time, and “Burn Book,” by Kara Swisher, with her take on the “Tech Bros” and their arrogance and hubris.

Please connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads or X (@kenestencooke), or email me at ken@fredericksburgstandard.com.