Daily Circulation: 10,053
Sunday Circulation: 10,515


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.

Content
Increased in-paper promotion, including regular promotion of on-going features. Some promotion of upcoming news stories.

More "feature" style reporting focusing on who people are affected by events.

Increased focus on health, fashion and travel. We've added a new service which has more of these topics and, more importantly, our writers are working on more of these stories.

Development of a "Bubba" file of local people who we can (and do) call for comments on news stories.

More go-and-do stories offering details on events.

Brand
We developed a slogan and have used it consistently in promotional materials.

We have partnered with two local radio stations and host a twice-daily newscast reported by a newspaper staffer. In addition we have a regular slot for a discussion of the day's news during a local morning radio show.

Service
Regular discussions of how better to serve customers are on-going.

Circulation department has set goals to ensure proper delivery.

All employees have been instructed on proper handling of calls. Goal is for customer to get what they need without being transferred all around the building.

Culture
We have worked to eliminate silos between departments. We regularly meet as department heads and have continuing informal dialogue.

Our staff has been told that we are all one team and should communicate with each other about our concerns regardless of whether or not the concern deals with a team member's particular department or another department.



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?
Focused heavily on putting stories in our paper that the readership survey says are what readers want.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
Good comments from readers.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
That we cannot ignore readers' concerns. That we must provide our readers with content that means something to their daily lives.



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?
Double, triple and quadruple our in-paper promotions.

Getting Traction on Readership

Survey Responses by Topic & Newspaper