Daily Circulation: 27,916
Sunday Circulation: 32,304


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
Bulletin Buddy Joint Promotions: we teamed with local entertainment venues (Navigators Baseball, Arena Football, WNBA, movie theatres, etc.) to develop joint promotions targeted specifically to our key targets - young families. These promotions include poster size "baseball card" ads with two-for-one or free gift coupons attached (all coupons are branded as Bulletin Buddies), contests for cars, trips, season tix, etc. for adults, along with contests for kids (Barbie look-a-likes, junior golf, ball girl/ball boys), and free event giveaways. The also include special NIE tab sections distributed in-paper and to schools throughout the area.

All Points Bulletin Classifieds: We redesigned classifieds to appeal to young readers, and introduced editorial content into the section they go to most readily. First we brought all the classified ads into one contiguous section (vs. scattered throughout the newspaper). Fronted it with quick, easy-reading, fun content related to major classifications. Nearly every day of the week, the classified section is now a stand alone section, allowing a very colorful front page. We pulled horoscopes, the jumble and crossword into classifieds labeled Fun & Games. Finally, we added a "Happygram Billboard" to the classified front. This is a color picture and message that runs within the classified header, wishing a person a happy birthday, or other best wishes. This space can be purchased. However, whether purchased by a private party or free to an employee, this space carries a local person and message every day.

Newsroom mantra, "Local People Are Our Franchise" - posted on newsroom bulletin boards - led to refocusing of ALL local stories on people who live in the nine towns and four population centers in our target market. If reporters cover a story outside the 9/4 area - a submarine returning to Groton, a budget hearing in Hartford, a homecoming ceremony for the UConn Huskies at Storrs - they do it through the eyes of local people they find at the scene. During the recent war in Iraq, wire coverage was supplemented by local stories everyday; A daily "Voices on the Home Front" man-on-the-street feature captured the opinions of 150 readers over the war's tenure.

Service
We promoted carrier recruitment very aggressively (ads, fliers, outdoor signs, etc.) and developed carrier retention initiatives (contests, appreciation events) to decrease excessive carrier turnover that had a severely negative impact on delivery services. This single initiative had a tremendous impact on turning around circulation (and readership) trends, as declines were brought to a halt. From there, various new sales initiatives were able to be more effective and grow readership.

We invested in new inserting equipment. The previous equipment was causing very late deliveries, costing us both readers and carriers. The carrier turnover caused a loss of even more readers as the service was negatively impacted.

Classified ad takers have been moved out of their dark corner of the building, to the front lobby where they are far more accessible to customers.

The newsroom is again selling photo reprints from the newspaper, reestablishing a connection that had been allowed to lapse. Our ability to do this is tied to a partnership with a local photo studio that provides full color glossy prints to the customer.

Brand
Next Day Promotion: We've teamed with a multi-station radio company with both a news station that reaches well outside or our market, and the #1 young adult station within our market. We purchased advertising on the newly launched news station that promotes our online content, and leveraged that buy for next-day news spots run at no cost to us on the young adult station. This is also being done, on a limited basis, in the newsroom, but will become SOP through design enhancement planned that gets underway this summer.

Third party sales: The entertainment venue joint promotions noted above included a third party sales component that distributed over 45,000 newspapers to area residents, readers and non-readers alike. Each of the newspapers were handed to a specific person (as opposed to dumped on racks), exposing them to our content for the first time, or an additional time, that day.

NIE: We've greatly expanded our NIE distribution over the past three years by approx. 150,000 copies per school year. While exposing younger readers to our product and role in the community, we have anecdotally found that some NIE copies actually make it into the home with the students who discuss it with their parents.

The newsroom is placing almost daily links in the newspaper sending readers to related links on www.norwichbulletin.com, strengthening our brand by combining print and the Web.

Culture
The first Newsroom Retreat, which occurred in November, was built around acquainting whole newsroom staff with findings in "The Power to Grow Readership" report. It included formal presentation by expert (Steve DeAngelis, Providence Journal marketing director) and panel discussions with community leaders and a cross-section of readers. Newspaper department heads also reported on their plans for the coming years, aimed at "lowering silos."

Newsroom Summit in February followed up on retreat, reviewing readership principles, outlining the newspaper's "Franchise Topics," and sharing market data with newsroom staff.

In the area of "lowering silos," the newsroom and marketing and have been sharing photographers and graphic artists as need arises.



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?
At the Newsroom Summit, a wallet-size card was distributed bearing the newsroom mantra, "Local People Are Our Franchise" and the Readership Institute's top nine high-potential content areas. Every reporter, photographer and editor carries this with them at all times.



What is the most persuasive indication you have that your readership efforts are producing results?
A carrier crisis that began in 1999 severely affected circulation (a 15% drop from 1998 to 2002) and readership (12 to 24 point losses in yesterday readership (total and by demo) over the same period). All of the newspaper efforts combined - news, circulation, marketing, production, advertising and others, have helped us halt the declines and increase daily home delivery in our NDM by 9%, and Sunday 7%, year-over-year. Even more impressive to us, is that we accomplished this at a time when a competing newspaper was dumping very big dollars into our market in staffing, sales pressure and promotion. Their gains in our market have been negligible (1 daily copy).

There's an editorial component to this: Locally focused special reports, produced on a breaking-news basis, have caused circulation spikes as high as 1,100 single-copy sales. They ranged from local reaction to Columbia explosion and nightclub fire in Warwick, R.I., (where local people died), to a full-court press on President Bush's graduation address at nearby Coast Guard Academy. The intense local focus, per RI guidelines, is designed to increase readership.



What is the most important lesson you have learned as you have worked on readership in the last few years?
Increasing readership using the RI model is a long-term effort. It resists churn-and-burn tactics for methods that develop more regular and thorough readership of our product. In the area of service, results do not come easy - readers are hesitant, and sometimes cynical, to believe we will consistently deliver on our new promises. Efforts must be constant, consistent and very focused. Any initiative that does not further these efforts must be considered very seriously, in case that might drain needed resources.



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?
We have made improvements, but still struggle with infrastructure challenges such as press/color/newsprint issues that conflict with anchoring efforts, time and staff issues that have, up till now, hindered redesign efforts with navigation initiatives and tightening newshole in a soft economy.

Getting Traction on Readership

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