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AWN Board Approves Sales Incentives for Individual Sellers for the First Time

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By Mark Hanzlik, Executive Director

Near the end of our recent sales webinar, Sarah Billingsley, AWN Communications Director introduced the idea of initiating a national ad seller incentive.  The AWN Board of Directors voted to approve this new sales incentive program effective immediately.

In Sarah’s words, the pitch for the program went something like this:

AWN recognizes the act of selling national advertising is a marathon, not a sprint, and sometimes it’s hard to see the finish line.   When one gets there, it’s natural to seek a return on the investment of time and effort.   Therefore, we are excited to offer AWN’s first sales incentive to be paid directly to the national advertising salespersons as a result of ad buys sold into AWN network publications.

golden salesThe sales incentive, in the form of a cash bonus, will be paid to AWN sellers based on new sales sold into the network based on several sales levels and corresponding cash bonuses.    A new sale qualifies if the advertiser has run in any AWN publication other than the salesperson’s publication.   Also, a new sales qualifies if the advertiser has not run during the past 9 months.   There’s a real incentive for bringing back previous advertisers who are familiar with alternative weekly advertising products.

More details of the program are available upon request.

Let’s be clear, this program would pay an individual directly a bonus, not the publication or publisher that he/she works for.?    We had not attempted to launch an incentive program like this previously because some publishers weren’t supportive of the idea for non-local ad sales, particularly because of employment sales objective conflicts.    I’m assuming the loss of national print ad revenue which has been substantial over the past few years has finally out-weighed the downsides of such a program.   Another idea on the table is to institute some sales incentive contests with exciting prizes and other rewards.    We’ll evaluate the progress of the new sales incentives and report back to the group regularly.

On a separate but somewhat related note, network sales for the first two months of the year have been very slow.  I’m not going to make any assumptions about the remainder of the year

Advertising

yet, but clearly the first quarter is not going as well as expected.

After the first quarter has ended,  I’ll share with you the sales and revenue results from that period and the corresponding comparison periods that will allow us to get a better perspective on AWN’s financial picture.  ?In the meantime, we are moving forward with as much energy and enthusiasm as we can muster to get sales moving through the network, and we believe the best way to accomplish that is by re-energizing the cooperative sales force that seems to have vanished.

All hands on deck!

New Blood to Start/Keep it Going!

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By Sarah Billingsley, AWN Communications Director

People perform better in a world they help create.   At least, that is what I was taught at the Leadership Training for Managers class I took at Dale Carnegie back in the day.

In that spirit, AWN’s cooperative network allows for a collaborative environment in which publications within the network are empowered to sell non-local advertising into world-class alt weekly publications all around the country.    This means that AWN has been successful and can continue to be the same because of the work members put into the process. AWN Central is here to support and facilitate non-local advertising sales by (and in) publications in our network, but you are the experts at selling your product(s).   No one can sell your publications better than each of you. We understand national sales are not always high on your priority list, and we want to make sure we are optimizing our relationship with you.

KEEP IT GOING

One idea-generating method is the “Start, Stop, Keep” exercise. The idea is – people who do the work are the ones who know how the work needs to be done.  So, early this year we asked AWN members to fill in the blanks.   “What do you think?  What should AWN start doing, stop doing, keep doing?”

The overwhelming answer was simple – AWN should continue to share information! ? ?With that in mind, we hosted our first AWN sales go-to-webinar on March 10.

We invited a small group of AWN leaders, veteran sellers, and new sellers with multiple ad claims to participate in the meeting (the number somehow grew to nearly 20 participants).

The objectives were two-fold:

1) Increase awareness through information sharing, training and marketing
2) Increase sales accountability for network advertising sales.

Motivation2

There were a number of initiatives and subjects discussed but one of the warmer items that got a number of positive responses was sales incentives for individual AWN sellers, something that has not been done in this network before.

If you would like to view the presentation deck and related documents from the webinar, please email me – sarah@awn.org

NEW BLOOD

An interesting outcome form the sales meeting was the introduction of new players in the AWN selling game. Several new names have popped up on the claims list in the past few months, so we thought we would take a minute to introduce them, and give a little description of the kinds of claims they are working on behalf of the network.

Eileen Pursley, Advertising Director at the Philadelphia City Paper has had a long career in the newspaper industry, including a stint as the Executive Sales Director at Metro Newspaper and Advertising Sales Director at Broad Street publishing. She is pursuing ad accounts such as Gardasil, Comcast, and Tropicana Atlantic City.

Carla Holder is the new National Accounts Manager at the Sacramento News & Review. Carla has an alt weekly background and hails from the Nashville where she sold advertising at the Nashville Scene. Carla is working on accounts several accounts including Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Events & Adventures.

Kelly Christie from Buffalo Artvoice has worked in the business for several years and spends time throughout the year in Buffalo and Florida (guess where she spends winter!). Kelly is calling on a long list of accounts on behalf of the network, including Barnes and Nobles and Black and White (women’s clothes).

Another change in the AWN sales force is the recent departure of long-time AWN seller Mary Samson who left the San Francisco Bay Guardian this week.  New Director of Sales at SFBG Jim Tamietti indicated they are searching for a replacement which means we may have another new seller on our list.

We are excited by the prospect of what can be achieved this year. I believe with the powerful cocktail of veterans and new sellers engaged in the field, we can harness the power of our individual voices and join forces to create a stronger network. We are a like spider web, publications around the country connected by the fiber of our common missions. Individually we may not be able to take down a foe, but connect us, and we have a much better chance of survival. ? ?So, now that we’ve established that our AWN members are the best experts at selling alternative weeklies, tell us what you’re working on and how we can help you, help each other.

Pacific Northwest Inlander Tops All Other Local Media in Spokane

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By Sarah Billingsley, Communications Director

In a day when print, as a medium, is relegated to the ranks of 8 tracks and VHS tapes, it is more than a little encouraging to hear some good news on the print side of the alternative weekly industry. It turns out alternative weekly print products are not obsolete. In fact, they are very much a part of our communities. Readers continue to depend on alt weeklies, and follow the scent of these well-written, locally-focused publications.

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Here’s a success story from Spokane, Washington.    The Pacific Northwest Inlander has reached new heights in market penetration.  According to the latest report from The Media Audit, the weekly publication has outpaced not only every section of the daily newspaper, but all other locally-produced media in the marketplace.

“Well, we finally scaled the mountain here – or at least the mountain as I’ve perceived it all these years,” reported Jer McGregor, General Manager of the Pacific NW Inlander

“Last year, in an effort to gain market share while our daily pulled back circulation and laid off staff,  we decided to increase the number of distribution locations and total print run,” continued McGregor.   “So, not only have we surpassed every section of the daily newspaper*, but we’ve also surpassed (for the first-time ever) all other media, all local television newscasts.”

“The 44.9% market penetration is our best-ever market penetration level, ” McGregor said in closing.  ” We’ve been members of AWN about the same length of time we’ve had Media Audit – since the mid 90’s.”

*The Inlander has not yet surpassed the combined Sunday edition of the daily newspaper in the market, The Spokesman-Review but McGregor indicates they are close.   Check out The Media Audit ranker report for the Spokane market and see their killer numbers for yourself.

Spokane_MA

Another media appearing on the ranker (at #13)  is the local InHealthNW Magazine, also published by the Inlander and distributed separately in the marketplace.

Here’s more strong sales points in favor of alt weeklies from Jer McGregor:

Our company’s belief, similar to what can be found in the “Power of Print” campaign, is that success is in the product you deliver, not always how it is delivered.  Our goal is to be the best at delivering “local” to our community, and being closely involved with as many local organizations as possible.

The free distribution method of alternative weeklies, unlike other traditional media, has not been interrupted.  Television is now dealing with a wide range of competition from video games, cell phones, on-demand video and most of all DVR’s that allow users to skip commercials.  Radio now competes with satellite broadcasts, iPods and the deregulation that’s lead to more big-format competition within its own ranks.  Daily newspapers contend with their long-standing pay-for-service format that no longer appeals to as many users.  Weekly newspapers are still available in communities as a desired free product providing important local news and entertainment coverage that so many people are interested in.

There’s been readership evidence to support our ongoing claims alternative weekly readers are young, affluent, and educated, but we also have proof in this market and probably a few others that an alt weekly publication will reach more than any other local media. And that’s good news.

Circulation Audit Firms Surviving in Digital World

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By Mark Hanzlik, Executive Director

We’ve been spending a lot of time lately analyzing the rapidly evolving web metrics measurement universe; primarily looking at which methodologies are the most accurate, reliable and which companies are best suited for advertisers’ needs. But many of our clients still reside in the brick & mortar world of print advertising, so, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look back at the print publishing circulation audit process—giving us a comparative view of both digital and print reporting.

It’s been some time since we last pounded the circulation audit drums for the publishing industry.   Our impetus for previous analyses of the circulation audit process were driven primarily by advertisers looking for zip code targeted circulation reports. We’ve also offered circulation audit primers that reinforced the importance of using audit reports when selling print advertising space.

Here’s the full story posted on The Macintosh Wizard and PC Tech Log . today.

Stay tuned next month, we’ll post our analysis of web metrics and research firms.