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Ask an Expert Questions and Answers

Can an organization refuse advertising from anyone it chooses?

Full question: A 501(c)(3) foundation publishes a travel guide that my newspaper designs and prints. The foundation has prevented some businesses from advertising because of bad business histories. Now a disgruntled former advertiser is threatening a lawsuit because he says he is not being treated equally by being prevented from advertising. Does a private business – non-profit or otherwise – have the right to refuse business to anyone?

A private business is allowed to make its own editorial decisions about what to publish. The First Amendment right to freedom of the press prevents the state from interfering with private editorial decision-making, as was made clear in the Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo case, 418 U.S. 241 (1974).

This includes the right to turn away advertisements, as the Supreme Court noted in a decision the previous year when it refused to extend the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” to broadcast advertising. (CBS v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U.S. 94, 1973).

Consider recent instances of networks broadcasting the Super Bowl — they regularly turn away ads from political groups such as MoveOn.org or anything else deemed too racy for the public, such as PETA’s regular attempts to grab attention.

Merely by virtue of being a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organizations do not surrender their First Amendment rights. Just last year, the Supreme Court in the Citizens United v. FEC case upheld free speech rights for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations, striking down campaign finance regulations that limited the ability of the organization to spend money in political campaigns, a kind of speech.

In short, with very few exceptions, publishers have a right under the First Amendment to make editorial decisions without the state, or the courts, interfering with them. This includes the right to choose which advertisements to accept and which to reject. While the contents of advertising can be regulated — consider the Fair Housing Act requirements that advertising not include discriminatory content — it remains in the publisher’s discretion whether to publish an advertisement in the first place.

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Facebook Social media Twitter

Call it what you will, journalists should develop their brands

One way to know you’re getting older: When you hear the word “branding” and cattle come to mind. But if you’re at all plugged in, you know that today the word is typically used to refer to a product’s – and now a person’s – identity. Who you are. What you’re known for. Your uniqueness. What one writer called your “digital footprint.” Some of the more traditional journalists still shy away from “branding” as applied to individual reporters – they see it as a concept that applies to cereal or soap, not journalists. But actually, many journalists have been branded for years, though they never thought of it in those terms. One reporter might be known as the go-to guy for public records and making sense of data in a way that related to readers. Another might be a word-person – her prose full of voice and the type of writing that made you want to read sentences out loud. But it’s more than that, and this is why you need to read Steve Buttry’s blogpost (Steve is also a consultant to TCCJ). This article will help you think through what your brand is, and what you can make it. And as an added bonus, at the end of the post he also refers you to a number of other postings that will help you to develop your personal brand. This is a must-read, especially for younger journalists.

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Ask an Expert Questions and Answers Postal issues

Do we need to do anything at the post office if we’re not going to publish one week?

“We are toying with the idea of shutting down the entire first week of July and not running a paper. A lot of groups (us included) do this on the last week of the year but this would be the first time we have done it twice. The idea is to give our people two full weeks of vacation per year. Does anyone know if we have to do anything special at the post office to make this happen?”
Austin Lewter
Managing editor

Yes, it can be done. However, since it changes the stated frequency with USPS, the newspaper must file a Form 3510 (available at http://pe.usps.gov) under Postage Statements in left toolbar, and then “Periodicals Forms.” The current fee is $65 for “Re-entry” on this multi-purpose form in Part B, Sections a and b. The frequency would be listed as 52 weeks currently and 50 weeks going forward, and the ID statement run in the newspaper should be revised to state something like, “Published weekly except the first week of July and and the last week of the year.”
Max Heath
Postal consultant
Shelbyville, Ky.

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Uncategorized

Five things shoppers look for in an ad

I have had many teachers and mentors in more than three decades in in sales. One of my favorites was Cecil “Ceese” Heyman. Ceese grew up in the “hollers” of West Virginia. He looked a bit like Boss Hog and sounded a bit like Jed Clampett, but he was one of the best advertising salespeople I’ve ever known. One of the wisest things Ceese ever told me was: “Don’t forget to remind your customers – Your ad is you in print!”

Cecil would tell his customers: “You put a lot of effort into making your place of business attractive and inviting to potential customers, Does it really make sense to send a different message to the people looking at your ad? People who have never visited your business might get the wrong impression if the ad doesn’t accurately reflect your business. If you have a small, dingy cluttered ad, they may think that’s what your store is like. You have a great business; you need a great ad to tell people about what you’ve built here.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ceese’s strategy was to use prospects’ pride in their business and their desire to project a positive image to sell a good-looking ad. He reminded customers of the effect the ad would have on readers. Ceese understood that an ad is a tool to communicate information about a business that will entice potential customers to call or stop in.

An ad should paint a picture of the customer’s business. The more complete the picture, the more likely someone will be motivated to do business with the advertiser (as long as the ad doesn’t become cluttered).

Here are five types of information shoppers look for in an ad:

1) Information about products and services

This is the most basic information in an ad. It tells what the client sells. Are they a jewelry shop or a plumber? The problem is that many advertisers’ ads read like a laundry list of products. Their ads are cluttered and difficult to read and frequently this information displaces other information which consumers need to make a buying decision.

Generally it is better to focus on one or two product categories in an ad and present them attractively. If a client sells many products, they can run a rotation of ads featuring various products.      

2) Why buy this product:  value factors

If the product information is the “what,” value factors are the “why.” They tell readers why they should purchase the product/service presented in the ad. People want to know what sets the advertiser apart from the competition and what makes the product worth the purchase price.

This is Selling 101 — people buy benefits, not features, but this information is missing in many ads. I see many restaurant ads that list every single topping available on the pizza and all the salad dressings available but fail to tell me one thing: Does the food taste good?

3) Can I trust this business?

Other value factors are reasonable prices (“Half off this week only”), advantages over competition (“Longest Warranty Available”), or other advantages such as safety (“Health Department’s highest rating”). Value factors are copy points that offer benefits to buyers and convince them that spending their hard-earned money with the advertiser is the smart thing to do.

We have talked about the "what and why.” Trust factors are about the “who.” Specifically, “who” am I thinking of doing business with? Can I trust this person, this company? Trust factors in an ad are statements like “since 1972” (They’re not a fly-by-night company), bonded and insured (“I’m safe to do business with”) or references available (“I can check them out”). 

This type of information becomes more and more important as the investment required to purchase the product/service increases. Businesses in industries that have a bad reputation (like used car dealerships or contractors) will reap significant rewards by establishing their trustworthiness in the mind of the consumer.

One of the best ways to establish a positive image is to use local testimonials, preferably using a photo of the satisfied customer. Readers can identify with the person pictured and this will mean more to most people than a ream of professional certifications.

4) Is this shopping experience convenient?

Convenience factors include features like free parking, delivery, evening hours, financing available, credit cards accepted or three-locations-to-serve-you. These are copy points that tell potential clients “Come on down…we’re easy to deal with!”

Consumers are stressed and busy today. Anything you can do to save readers time or to make their life just a little bit easier will make them much more likely to do business with your advertiser. Consumers often will even bypass a business that offers lower prices to visit a store which offers more convenience.

5) Now what?

This information tells the reader how to take the next step. This includes the advertiser’s business name, their address, their phone number and their web address. Here again the easier you make it for the consumer, the better response the ad will generate.

A simple map is better than an address alone and a reference point (“Across the street from city hall”) will help consumers find your client’s location. There is some research that indicates that saying something like “Call today” in front of a phone number actually causes more people to pick up the phone.

Using the five factors

As an advertising consultant, you should discuss these factors with your advertisers. When you talk to people about what goes into their ad, you get away from discussions centered on the price of the ad.

One technique that I like to use is an analysis of an ad using the factors listed above. I copy an ad and divide it into a grid. Using this grid I calculate what percentage of the ad is dedicated to each of the factors. Often when I do this I’ll find ads that completely lack trust and value factors. These ads tell customers the what and who but not the why. This process often opens a customer’s eyes and convinces them to expand their program to tell a more complete story.

You can use this analysis technique to take business away from the competition. I will review a prospect’s ad in a competitive publication before calling on them. If they say “No thanks, I’m already in the daily competitor,” you can say, “Yes, I’ve seen your ad. In fact, I did a content analysis of your copy. I’d be happy to leave it with you so you can discuss it with your rep if you’d like.”

This piques the prospect’s curiosity and keeps the discussion going. Review the analysis with the prospect to demonstrate your expertise and your willingness to work for the client. You are positioning yourself as a true consultant. More often than not, you will wind up with a slice of the client’s budget.

Conclusion

We are in the communication business. We try to communicate the value of our publications to our customers and we try to communicate the value our advertisers offer to their customers. It is important that we look at what our customers are saying in their ads.

Remember: The ads we create for our customers tell a story about their business. We must make sure we are telling their complete story. If we tell their story right, everyone involved, the shoppers, our advertisers and sales person, will get the happy ending they want.

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Business of News

Mixed news from NAA on ad revenues

New advertising figures are now out from NAA, and it’s a mixed bag of news. On the positive side, there was a 4 percent increase in print employment advertising, and newspapers attracted nearly two-third of Internet users – more than 111 million unique visitors in April. On the downside, total print advertising revenues fell 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2011. And overall, print revenues are down $10.5 billion from 2006. The figures also showed that digital is now nearly 15 percent of total newspaper advertising revenues.

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Business of News

A real-life parable for our times

So we have two media companies. Both are wildly successful and make a lot of money. They have all the customers they could want. And then the media landscape begins to change. One company stands pat and believes that it offers such a valuable and appreciated service that it will weather the storm. Or to paraphrase TARP terminology, it is “too valuable to fail.” The other company realizes that it does not have to change the product it delivers, only come up with a new delivery system while still keeping the old product. Which newspapers are we talking about? Not newspapers – Netflix and Blockbuster. Netflix is still in the movie business, but changed from being a send-it-in-the-mail business to a video on demand leader. Blockbuster went bankrupt and got swallowed up by Dish Network, which is itself in trouble. There are definitely lessons here for the newspaper industry.

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Uncategorized

Coverage of Bin Laden’s death holds lessons for community newspapers

One of our most dangerous temptations in community journalism is to emphasize the “community” part of our name and not the “journalism.”

We’re not metros (thank God). But neither should we think that we are somehow insulated from their pressures and problems, or that the issues they face will be a long time in coming to us – if ever.  The old “that’s a city problem, not our problem” idea died when mass communications and then social media knit the nation into one 311-million-person village.

Case in point:  the news of Bin Laden’s death.  Now what could be further from the news coverage issues we face in Texas community journalism?

But we’ve got to pay attention to what we learned in that coverage.  Like the fact that Twitter dictated the news, not the White House.  The president may be able to order the execution of the leader of Al Qaeda, but he can’t determine how news will break.

One site, analyzing the coverage, included this important observation, one we should all consider: 

“As notions, ‘edition’ and deadline are dead.A newspaper editor’s worst nightmare is breaking news landing on a Sunday night at closing time. Such conjunction of content and timing carries a high risk of irrelevancy — if missed, or of good-faith false information hitting the streets the next day — if inaccurate. We all have memories of too-close-to-call elections, rumors of a personality’s death, etc.

“Newspapers took time to make their mind up on the question of deadlines and editions (and many have yet to cross that Rubicon). But the leaders of the pack took the straightforward option: dump everything on the internet, as fast as you can and without regard for closing deadlines.

“For the Bin Laden story, most big news organizations produced vast amounts of articles as their physical papers were being re-edited. By the time the updated edition hit the street, its content had been posted on the net, but every story had also been continuously updated and augmented.  Did it affect newsstand sales? Early data show this isn’t the case. Sales always rise, no matter how more up-to-date the publication website is. With high impact news, analyzing reader reactions shows people still enjoy the physical paper’s broad view — and, for those special occasions, there is the ‘collector’s item’ feeling.”

Note the first sentence – “edition” and “deadline” are dead.  That’s the idea that the production of the news (reporting, writing, editing, design, production, distribution) somehow determine when the news is ready for consumption by readers.  That’s a concept straight out of the 20th century.  And the 19th, 18th, 17th, and so forth.

Right now, we see that playing out in major international and national news stories – the death of Bin Laden, the William and Kate wedding, the death of Michael Jackson.  But social media especially are making significant inroads in all our communities.  And we saw in the recent Texas fires that many people in the state were turning to Facebook and websites because they wanted to know right then – not when the paper came out later – what the news was.

Read also what the quote above said about what happened when the print editions of the newspapers came out.  Did the fact that people heard about it on Twitter and discussed it on Facebook and saw it on the news stop them from buying newspapers?  Not at all.  The next day’s papers were selling out because people want to read more about high-interest items.  After all, do people who watched Friday night’s football game and talked about it in church Sunday avoid the coverage in your newspaper because they already know so much, or are they eager to read more and see the photos and stats you publish?

We are part of a revolution in how people get their information.  It hit the West and East coasts first, then the cities, then the suburbs … and now we’re all affected. 

And what does it mean for community papers? Mainly that we’re not community papers any more.  We are community news sources that publish a paper, in addition to the other ways we disseminate the news.  The paper is our centerpiece, our flagship, our most important product – but more and more, breaking news will be found on Twitter and Facebook and our websites.

It may not be the way we thought we would be practicing journalism, but remember that journalism isn’t newspapers – newspapers contain journalism.  Journalism is what our readers want to know, and we’ve got to be about the business of giving it to them.

Categories
Business of News Hyperlocal news New media Newspaper websites Online news

Revenue-generating ideas for your website

This article, “15 Ways to Generate Revenue for a Community News Site,” was written for hyperlocal online news sites — the competitors of most newspapers. But some of these ideas can easily be adapted for use by your own newspaper’s website. Here the first one: “Find a topic of interest to an audience and a particular advertiser. Have the advertiser put together a video to be aired on the site as a webinar. Readers sign up for it for free. The advertiser gets the names and emails of the attendees as possible sales leads in exchange for a sponsorship fee. A real estate agent might conduct a webinar on how to shop for a home, for example.” Let’s imagine, for instance, that you have a restaurant that’s known for making the best apple pie in town. Take your Flip camera down to the restaurant and let the owner show how to bake a great apple pie, step by step, on video. Then he/she can talk about the restaurant and the other pies they make there. At the end of the video (and you promote this at the very first to keep people tuned in), you offer a recipe if you click on a link — that helps to build the owner’s email list with the captured addresses. And who’s going to help the owner with the email campaign and tie it into your print and Internet editions? Your paper, of course!

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Circulation Community Journalism

Survey says: Readers love their community newspapers

So now the readers of NNA’s latest survey know what any community journalists have always known: Our readers think we’re doing a good job and almost three-quarters of them read us regularly.

What other industry can make such claims? Three-quarters of the people who live in towns served by community papers don’t shop regularly at Wal Mart or watch the same TV show or listen to the same music. But the latest Community Newspaper Readership Study by the National Newspaper Association and The Reynolds Journalism Institute indicates that a whopping 73 percent of residents in small towns and cities read local newspapers from one day to seven days a week. And more than two-thirds (78 percent) read most to all of the contents.
And there was even more good news in the survey: 80 percent consider local newspapers their primary news source; they prefer their community paper because it focuses on local news; and three-quarters say they look forward to reading their local newspaper.

What about other media? Eat your heart out, television – 50 percent chose newspapers for local news as opposed to 16.3 percent for TV and 6.7 percent for radio.

You can read a digest of the survey at the website of the Reynolds Journalism Institute (first link), or, if you’re a member of the National Newspaper Association, you can access the complete report that the NNA website (second link).

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Uncategorized

Online video makes money – but not the way we’ve been doing it

When will local newspaper websites and hyper local blogs start making money with video? Short answer: When they start sharing their video equipment with the sales department.

For now, the big money in online video is in promotion, demonstration and advertorial-based video content — not in editorial and news content. Watch short clip to the left to see how some production companies like TurnHere and AOL’s StudioNow are taking advantage of this fact.

It’s insane that newspapers and independent websites aren’t paying more attention to this trend. Instead, newspaper is still primarily focused on editorial and news video where journalists mimic the old-school techniques of TV reporters. Investment in digital video cameras for the staff, Final Cut Pro editing software and training are good things. But who decided these smart investments were for newsrooms only?

Producing video-based editorial or enhancing text-based stories with video is powerful and compelling. Unfortunately, it’s been a money pit.

TV-like video ‘packages’ might work in a linear 30-minute newscast, but they usually fall flat when online. A well-produced 3.5 minute report on the 11 p.m. news looks sweet with footage of a fire, quick sound bites and an attractive field reporter. Place that same clip online and on-demand — and it usually gets limited viewership. I’ve seen it first hand in my work with TV. Even if you could get a $50 cpm, the limited video views will make it difficult to adequately monetize.

TIP: If you MUST find a way to sell your editorial-based video, offer advertisers a share of voice (SOV) in the pre-roll position. Bundle it with banners and other digital sponsorships for now.

“My newspaper tried to make money with video, but it didn’t work.” Boy, do we hear that a lot. But the truth is, online video DOES make money…..just not in the way local news sites have been doing it.

Lately, we’re seeing more anecdotal evidence that the enthusiasm for online news video is waning. Not from the video journalists, but from high-level newsrooms and sales execs. These bottom-line focused executives echo a common refrain in their weekly meetings: even the best production value and subject matter doesn’t always translate into journalistic and revenue success.

Some culprits that contribute to this issue

Does the video on left bring anything of value to the piece? While the journalist is comfortable in front of a camera, this is just placing a camera in front of a radio talk show. It’s not helpful to the viewer at all, and advertisers wonder why they want to be associated with this content. While the basic production quality is solid, it cries out for still image overlays or video b-roll of the hockey game being discussed.

Sound like too much work? Then don’t do this type of video. Especially if you can’t attract viewers and a sponsor.

When to Consider Editorial Video?

We recommend that video should only be used if the story can be made better by sound and motion, otherwise it’s just ‘shooting video for video sake’.

Editorial video can be done in three basic ways

  1. Story Teller: A TV-like, fully produced ‘package’ that includes editing, stand-up reporter, graphics and narration. Typically 3.5 minutes in length.
  2. Story Extender: Raw footage that works as a complement and provides greater understanding to a text-based story. Footage can be embedded within or adjacent to the body of the online text story.
  3. Have to See It, to Believe It :Example: by monitoring police/fire scanners, you may be able to capture some exciting fire footage, a 20 car pile-up, or a perp walk, etc. This type of video could go viral.

Examples of online video for sales:

See how Yellow Pages created a video profile for a Fort Worth Dentist here.
See how Patch does it for a restaurant in the Philadelphia area here.