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National Championship Drives Newspaper Sales & Revenue
Alabama Newspapers Combine Efforts to Leverage Championship and Drive Newspaper Sales & Revenue
All three Advance properties; Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile collaborated in providing coverage leading up to Alabama's National Championship victory last Friday while promoting locally and the results included increased sales leading up to the game, increased traffic to al.com and increases in revenue.
In Birmingham on the Sunday leading up to the Thursday game single copy sales were up 5% with advanced ROP and POP promotion of the "Roll Tide" poster page.
Wednesday sales were up 9% week over week with promotion of a 32 page bowl preview section with 18 pages of incremental advertising.
On game day sales increased 31% or 3,568 copies compared to the previous week. The edition included a "false front" 4-page promotional poster wrap sold to local Ford Dealers.
On Friday after the game the Commemorative Championship Edition sales was up 24,733 copies which was a 196% increase over the previous week over week.
The newspaper used 3 unique hawing locations and sent "care packages" of 25 free papers to all radio and TV stations which generated on air mentions that supported the promotion.
The Huntsville Times had similar success where single copy sales increased 92% on Friday following the game despite the worst possible weather. They also sold more than 500 posters in their lobby and at a Dillard's location along with dozens of copies of "Perfection" the commemorative Alabama championship book which was also a collaborative effort among Huntsville, Birmingham, and Mobile.
Troy Niday, Vice President Circulation in Birmingham, summed up the success, "We sold a lot of papers, booked some solid incremental advertising revenue, and spiked online hits through the roof". He credits the strong incremental advertising sales to "our sales staff that worked real hard on the bowl preview sections, the game day wrap, andcongratulation ads on the days after the game, along with lot's of planning and collaboration between all the departments and newspaper properties."
Published
Jan 14 2010, 12:32 AM
by
jmurray
About jmurray
John Murray came to NAA in 1997 after 18 years of newspaper marketing experience. Most of that time was in circulation management positions. But he attributes much of his career success to also having spent time in newspaper promotion, research, strategic planning, community relations, and advertising which provided a broader context to his newspaper marketing expertise.
Prior to NAA John worked at Fort Wayne Newspapers, the business agency for The News Sentinel and Journal Gazette, where he was circulation director for both papers for seven years. After graduation from Louisiana State University he was recruited by Sears for retail management assignments. He began his newspaper career at the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer and was a participant in Knight Ridder’s Circulation Management Development Program.
At NAA John is responsible for Audience Development initatives, and serves as resource to newspaper executives charged with marketing the newspaper to readers, and audience metrics issues. John’s is the staff liaison for the NAA/ ABC Committees and serves as a resource to our advertisers regarding newspaper circulation and readership.
Recent publications produced by the circulation marketing department include: Understanding the Value of Newspapers - The Relationship Between Price Paid and Readership, NAA’s 2009Circulation Facts, Figures and Logic and Independant Contractor Relationships.
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