(Michael P. Smith)

I had noticed more reader participation -- contests, quizzes, and fun things to download -- in my local newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, so I emailed Denise Joyce and asked her about it. Sure enough, the Trib has undertaken being more interactive with readers as a growth strategy for 2007.

Denise's response made me wonder what other newspapers were planning for readership growth. I turned to the email again and asked: What are you doing to grow readership in 2007? Here are some ideas from friends in the readership wars.

The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Fla., is increasing its coverage of interest to women. The Post has a life-style feature called Charm. Nicole Neal says, "We are trying to expand our Charm franchise, which is coverage for women that runs four days a week in Accent, and make it a stand-alone section on Sundays. We're hoping this keeps the "brand" fresh, and, yes, sells some ads!"

The Star-News in Wilmington, N.C., also has women on the radar screen. Says Amanda Kingsbury: "To grow readership, particularly among women, we're looking at the idea of taking an approach that's more wholesome -- and less clever. I read a story in Atlantic Monthly about the new Walt Disney biography, and it made mention of the fact that the popularity of his movies really gained strength when he started exploring more wholesome features (as in Mary Poppins) as an avenue to reach his audience.

"I'm not at all talking about making the section PG or aimed at kids. I haven't defined 'wholesome' yet, but as one example, we might rework the Sunday section. Inspired by the tradition of the Sunday dinner, I started thinking about how food, faith and family are so intertwined in the South. So, I'm proposing a Sunday section that might be called "Sunday Dinner," and include stories about religion/spirituality, family/relationships, and food/entertaining as a leisurely pastime.

"That's one idea, but it's only in the proposal stage right now. A couple years ago, I attended a presentation ... by one of the editors at Real Simple, and she said that women say they love the magazine because it helps them relax. That's the kind of experience I'd like readers of a Sunday Dinner section to have, before the hectic work week begins."

Nicole and Amanda have hit upon ideas that the women's magazines have been exploiting. Among the motivating experience for readership of those magazines are "It's my personal time out," "I feel good when I read it," and "It improves me and helps me try new things." These are experiences from our magazine industry research.

The Dallas Morning News plans to increase the number of narrative-style stories it runs on the front page. Tom Huang says: "We know from the Readership Institute that adding narrative stories to the mix can help increase readership. And whenever we run such stories, we get tremendous reader response. We recently ran a 7-part narrative series on a young Mexican girl who was long abused by her uncle and brought illegally to the United States, ending up in Dallas. The series got more than 70,000 page views online and appears to have had an impact on single copy sales."

The Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, S.C., is going to initiate a query to find out what readers miss when they do not get the newspaper. Jose Franco explains: "We really want to examine why people just aren't picking up the newspaper and how we can make it a 'must have' item. Or why they should log onto our website on a daily basis.

"We made a DVD last summer talking to college students on why they didn't pick up the paper. We shared the DVD with staff and it was eye opening to hear it from people on why they didn't bother to read us."

What are you doing to grow readership in 2007? Share your ideas below in the comment section or email me.


By Michael P. Smith (m-smith3@northwestern.edu)
Michael P. Smith is executive director of the Media Management Center.