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It's impossible to grow circulation, right? Don't tell that to Okla. paper
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| The Claremore (Okla.) Daily Progress is a 6,000-circulation daily located in a 10,000-square-foot building on Will Rogers Boulevard. "We print two dailies and about five weeklies" at the facility, Publisher Bailey Dabney said. Image supplied |
By Adolfo Mendez | Editor
Bailey Dabney, publisher of the Claremore (Okla.) Daily Progress for the past 18 months, posted impressive gains in circulation in 2009, one of the worst years ever for the newspaper industry.
“Circulation growth does not have to be a thing of the past,” Dabney said. “It’s not over for us. It is for a lot of us, but I can tell we’ve been up 7.5 and 10 percent in circulation year over year. And we’re a small paper with very little resources.
The Daily Progress is a 6,000-circulation daily, with a growing profit margin, according to Dabney. “In Claremore, our November [2009] profit line was about 35 percent year over year,” he said. “Our December profit line we’re [expecting] to be up 200 percent year over year. But then 2008 year end was a hard time for newspapers.”
What’s his secret to increasing profits? “We’re not doing anything that’s ground-breaking,” he said. “We are just doing things that we feel like newspapers should’ve always been doing. One of those core things is growing circulation.” Dabney is convinced many publishers and circulation directors have lost circulation because they expect to do so—losses have become ingrained in their mindset. “It is still a market where circulation growth can happen,” Dabney said. “Unemployment in Oklahoma is 8 percent where I am—but still, today’s market is one you can still win in.
“If you don’t think that you can still grow in today’s market, the message for you is, “yes we can still grow circulation.’”
He said success really won’t happen without strong leadership that sends a positive message to employees that growth is realistic. “You need to say, ‘We can show growth, and not only can we, we have to show growth,’” Dabney said. “That will make a difference in the folks around you. Your leadership is going to deliver the results. If you are in a position of leadership, you need to be driving the positive thought in your department.”
Dabney said a common misconception from naysayers is that the public isn’t interested in newspapers, but he doesn’t take that seriously. “If you want to buy into the notion that nobody reads newspapers anymore, get a DUI,” he said. “And see how many people call your momma wanting to know what it in the world is going on in your life that would have you get a DUI. It is just incredible the number of people that see everything in the newspaper.”
Dabney’s positive outlook is accompanied by old fashioned hard work, he said. “When I say it’s possible to grow circulation, I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s still possible. It is going to be harder every year we continue to do it until the [economic] tide turns in our direction.”
The key for newspapers is perseverance. “We need to do what we used to do, to be very committed every single day to circulation growth,” Dabney said.
Dabney believes publishers and circulation directors know, for the most part, that there are “millions” of ways to work toward profit.
“The first step to a profitable newspaper is always to grow your paid, print circulation,” he said. “[Circulation] gimmicks are not increasing real readership. Advertisers want to see paid, print circulation. You need to prove your relevance to your marketplace so that your advertising reps can go out with a position of strength.”
Dabney said local businesses have turned news stories about the general decline of the newspaper industry against him. “They’ll say, ‘Why would I want to advertise in a dying industry?’ and ‘If you can’t figure out how to market yourself where you’re growing, why in the world would I trust you to market my product to where I would grow my product?’”
It’s a good question that requires a good response, he said. “When I tell them our circulation is up 7.5 percent or our circulation is up 10 percent—whatever it happens to be at the time—you can hear their jaw hit the ground. People want to associate with a winner.”
To encourage the troops, Dabney shares a “daily report card” that shows the home delivery numbers for the day, the week, the month and the year so everyone in the building can see it. “If you create a company-wide awareness of the successes that you’re having, of the challenges that you’re facing, when you get your circulation number up a few percentage points, everybody in the building is going to know it,” he said. “And all of their clients are going to know about it, and their friends are going to talk about it because it is a thing of pride these days for a newspaper to be able to show growth.”
Tom Kucera, owner of Customer Loyalty Concepts in Centennial, Colo., said that for small- to mid-size newspapers to grow, they should take an honest look at how they treat their subscribers. “If we don’t sound sincere, if we don’t bother to acknowledge them, if we don’t do anything to make them feel important, then we’re going to be establishing that’s not really important to your bottom line,” Kucera said.
“It’s all about them, it’s not about us in any which way,” Kucera said. “It’s sad, but true: they don’t really care if you are employed or if you’re not employed. They’re not bad people. They just don’t care because they don’t have time to care and they don’t know you. If you can lock that in your head, you will be halfway down the road to developing retention programs and technologies that work.”
Kucera said the cornerstone of subscriber retention is making sure the customer experience is positive. That idea is captured in this statement, which he said newspaper mangers should be in total agreement with: “A subscriber’s perception of how they are treated during the purchasing, delivery, billing and renewal processes will impact their decision to pay their initial bill and/or to remain a newspaper subscriber.”
“If you can’t say, ‘I agree with that 100 percent,’ then you’re probably in the wrong job,” Kucera said. “When you take a look at how you feel about things, I think you’ll see that this has to be the cornerstone. Give yourself a chance to build loyalty.”
Contacts: Bailey Dabney, bdabney@claremoreprogress.com, Tom Kucera, (303)741-1170
“Circulation growth does not have to be a thing of the past,” Dabney said. “It’s not over for us. It is for a lot of us, but I can tell we’ve been up 7.5 and 10 percent in circulation year over year. And we’re a small paper with very little resources.
The Daily Progress is a 6,000-circulation daily, with a growing profit margin, according to Dabney. “In Claremore, our November [2009] profit line was about 35 percent year over year,” he said. “Our December profit line we’re [expecting] to be up 200 percent year over year. But then 2008 year end was a hard time for newspapers.”
What’s his secret to increasing profits? “We’re not doing anything that’s ground-breaking,” he said. “We are just doing things that we feel like newspapers should’ve always been doing. One of those core things is growing circulation.” Dabney is convinced many publishers and circulation directors have lost circulation because they expect to do so—losses have become ingrained in their mindset. “It is still a market where circulation growth can happen,” Dabney said. “Unemployment in Oklahoma is 8 percent where I am—but still, today’s market is one you can still win in.
“If you don’t think that you can still grow in today’s market, the message for you is, “yes we can still grow circulation.’”
He said success really won’t happen without strong leadership that sends a positive message to employees that growth is realistic. “You need to say, ‘We can show growth, and not only can we, we have to show growth,’” Dabney said. “That will make a difference in the folks around you. Your leadership is going to deliver the results. If you are in a position of leadership, you need to be driving the positive thought in your department.”
Dabney said a common misconception from naysayers is that the public isn’t interested in newspapers, but he doesn’t take that seriously. “If you want to buy into the notion that nobody reads newspapers anymore, get a DUI,” he said. “And see how many people call your momma wanting to know what it in the world is going on in your life that would have you get a DUI. It is just incredible the number of people that see everything in the newspaper.”
Dabney’s positive outlook is accompanied by old fashioned hard work, he said. “When I say it’s possible to grow circulation, I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s still possible. It is going to be harder every year we continue to do it until the [economic] tide turns in our direction.”
The key for newspapers is perseverance. “We need to do what we used to do, to be very committed every single day to circulation growth,” Dabney said.
Dabney believes publishers and circulation directors know, for the most part, that there are “millions” of ways to work toward profit.
“The first step to a profitable newspaper is always to grow your paid, print circulation,” he said. “[Circulation] gimmicks are not increasing real readership. Advertisers want to see paid, print circulation. You need to prove your relevance to your marketplace so that your advertising reps can go out with a position of strength.”
Dabney said local businesses have turned news stories about the general decline of the newspaper industry against him. “They’ll say, ‘Why would I want to advertise in a dying industry?’ and ‘If you can’t figure out how to market yourself where you’re growing, why in the world would I trust you to market my product to where I would grow my product?’”
It’s a good question that requires a good response, he said. “When I tell them our circulation is up 7.5 percent or our circulation is up 10 percent—whatever it happens to be at the time—you can hear their jaw hit the ground. People want to associate with a winner.”
To encourage the troops, Dabney shares a “daily report card” that shows the home delivery numbers for the day, the week, the month and the year so everyone in the building can see it. “If you create a company-wide awareness of the successes that you’re having, of the challenges that you’re facing, when you get your circulation number up a few percentage points, everybody in the building is going to know it,” he said. “And all of their clients are going to know about it, and their friends are going to talk about it because it is a thing of pride these days for a newspaper to be able to show growth.”
Tom Kucera, owner of Customer Loyalty Concepts in Centennial, Colo., said that for small- to mid-size newspapers to grow, they should take an honest look at how they treat their subscribers. “If we don’t sound sincere, if we don’t bother to acknowledge them, if we don’t do anything to make them feel important, then we’re going to be establishing that’s not really important to your bottom line,” Kucera said.
“It’s all about them, it’s not about us in any which way,” Kucera said. “It’s sad, but true: they don’t really care if you are employed or if you’re not employed. They’re not bad people. They just don’t care because they don’t have time to care and they don’t know you. If you can lock that in your head, you will be halfway down the road to developing retention programs and technologies that work.”
Kucera said the cornerstone of subscriber retention is making sure the customer experience is positive. That idea is captured in this statement, which he said newspaper mangers should be in total agreement with: “A subscriber’s perception of how they are treated during the purchasing, delivery, billing and renewal processes will impact their decision to pay their initial bill and/or to remain a newspaper subscriber.”
“If you can’t say, ‘I agree with that 100 percent,’ then you’re probably in the wrong job,” Kucera said. “When you take a look at how you feel about things, I think you’ll see that this has to be the cornerstone. Give yourself a chance to build loyalty.”
Contacts: Bailey Dabney, bdabney@claremoreprogress.com, Tom Kucera, (303)741-1170
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Fred Presler wrote on Jan 12, 2010 1:17 PM: