OUR CONSULTATION                                                          rates | our consultation | test drive form

Our comprehensive consultation includes:

Advertising

• We will contact your competitors to verify their current rates, market penetration, discount programs, etc., to discover if your rates and programs are too high, too low or just right.
• We will contact your regular advertisers to see what kind of response they are receiving. We also will contact your competitors’ regular advertisers and ask the same question.
• We will review your media kit to make sure you have included all of the essential topics.
• We will show you how to put together a revenue-generating page every week of the year with little additional burden to your advertising or production staff. We’ll also show you how to promote these pages well in advance and at little cost through in-house ads, fax blasts and even direct mail.
• We will include a detailed discussion of how you can make money, generate terrific (yet affordable) publicity for your advertisers, and, at the same time, raise money for a worthy cause. It’s a win-win-win situation, with your paper not only generating revenue, but also positioning itself in the community as a good neighbor.
• We’ll take a look at your current page sponsorships and suggest ways they can be improved.
• We’ll give you a list of little, inexpensive things you can do that keep advertisers feeling “special” and offer specific and unique examples that can be applied in your market.
• Partnerships with business, civic and industry groups yield special sections, or even standalone publications, that are guaranteed profit centers for both you and the group you have partnered with. We’ll show you how to approach leaders of these organizations and construct packages that put money in everyone’s pockets – all the while giving advertisers an affordable and effective way to reach their target markets.
• We’ll show you how local businesses can advertise with you for little or no money out of their pocket through co-op advertising.
• When your advertising reps pitch your publication, what do they tell potential clients? We’ll review your “talking points” and suggest additional techniques and assets that you might have overlooked. We’ll do this two ways: Via information you provide and by placing a phone call to your publication and asking to speak to a sales rep.
• We’ll also provide a list of popular contests and promotions – both general and unique to your market – that can benefit the newspaper, readers and advertisers.
• Want to expand into a new market? We’ll tell you how you can be profitable from Day No. 1 by building from your current advertising base and finding new clients.
• Tell us how your ad production flows and we’ll tell you how you can improve it, right down to a critique of your manifest and insertion orders.
• If your publication is eligible for legal ads, we will offer tips about how you can boost revenue from that source. There’s a lot you can do other than waiting for the local lawyer to call you.

Editorial:

• Complete content review with specific examples of how stories could have been better will be included.
• We will compare your content with that of your competition. What are they doing better? What are you doing better?
• We will offer specific strategies about how to put readers to work for you and boost your community news content.
• We’ll show you how to find and keep good, reliable, accurate freelance reporters and photographers, how much to pay them and how to manage them. We also will review your freelance contract.
• We’ll discuss the importance of having a lively, community-based news section and how that can translate directly into the generation of advertising dollars.
• With regard to staffing, we’ll make sure that you are getting the most out of every newsroom employee and suggest cross-training where we find it appropriate.
• You will receive a design review with suggestions about everything from typeface to page layout to headline writing, complete with examples of good and bad design work and a detailed breakdown of your section fronts. We are not designers, so we won’t conduct a complete redesign of your newspaper. We will, if requested, put you in touch with designers we have used in the past.
• We’ll show you how a community advisory board can improve both your news content and your advertising revenue.

Circulation:

• If you are a paid-circulation newspaper, we will compare your rate to your competition’s. We also will suggest methods for increasing your circulation and distribution, including popular partnership programs with local nonprofits, schools and businesses.
• If you are a free newspaper, we will look at your method of distribution and analyze its effectiveness. For example, are you better off being delivered through the mail, at drop spots, door-to-door or some combination of the above? We’ll look at costs and benefits.
• We also will analyze the costs and benefits of being paid vs. being free in your market.
• Depending upon your method of distribution, we will make sure you’re getting the best deal available. For example, if you are delivered door-to-door, we will compare the costs of those currently performing the service with others who perform the same service in your area.

Production Printing:

• We will contact printers in your area and compare your cost per page per thousand, mailing services and delivery costs, when applicable, to what others are offering to ensure you are getting the best possible price, services and quality.
• We will review your printing schedule with the various printers to determine if a shift in deadlines and production days would save money.
• We will discuss a terrific source of hidden revenue that can be tapped by publishing various publications in-line with your current one.
• We will give you talking points and negotiation tips for approaching a new printer and for dealing with your existing one.

Web:

• We will look at your Web site and make suggestions – especially those that can lead to greater interaction with your readers and advertisers.
• If you don’t have a Web site, or want a better one, we will connect you with experienced designers who will do a great job at a reasonable price.

Administration Staffing/HR:

• We will analyze your staffing levels, job duties, and your salary and commission structure.
• We will make random calls to your publication to check the level of customer service your employees offer.

Accounting:

• We will review your payroll procedures, invoicing methods, collection techniques and more to determine, for example, if these tasks should be handled in-house or by an outside firm.

Technology:

• We will evaluate your current technology and compare it to your needs and anticipated future needs. We will make specific recommendations, such as the type of digital camera your newspaper should be using.

Budget:

• We will dissect your budget line item-by-line item and look at everything from long distance service to salaries to health insurance premiums and cost-per sale.

Marketing:

• What events do you sponsor? What events should you sponsor?