Daily Circulation: 10,827
Sunday Circulation: 11,378


List the major steps you have taken in the last four years to increase readership. Please organize your response under four headings: content, brand, service, culture.
Added profiles of students and community people in brief, boxed format. We ask all participants similar questions (favorite food, favorite movie, person they admire most).

Improved Sunday paper by ensuring centerpiece and enterprise pieces complete with graphics.

Content
Added a thrice-weekly "Get to Know" feature profiling a community person with whom the public comes into contact, such as a clerk, a government worker, etc.

Worked harder to include real people in stories, often in lead and as examples of the subject of the piece.

Added more briefs pages, both wire and local.

Added a second feature on Lifestyle cover.

Brand
We now have a booth at county fair staffed by members of each department.

We use rack cards more often to promote specials

We do Page 1 promos of upcoming special sections and pages.

Service
We have placed more emphasis on customer service through phone courtesy and routing calls.

We now have a letter from ME sent to all new subscribers welcoming them and outlining what they can expect and what we want from them.



What is the most innovative, successful or noteworthy thing you have done on readership that you think other papers might learn from or want to emulate?
Our people profiles are popular. Quick reads, with photo and interesting personal info on the subjects.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
Reader reaction to the profiles and, it appears, more attention to our content since we get more feedback on the good and bad they think we do.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
Without readers we are nothing.



What would you like to do on readership that you have not been able to do and why haven't you been able to do it?
Develop more community input, through letters, guest columns, etc.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper