NewsBeat

16 NewsBeat March 2019 The week after Christmas my publisher gave to me 15 new promotion ideas for 2019 I t is almost January and time to empower new ideas to put money in the bank this coming year. Here's an idea for every month plus and extra three to swell the pot. 1 JANUARY Honor Roll of Business Pages This is a great project for your inside sales department. (See example.) Sell local businesses 2x2-inch black and white ads, 27 to a page, listing the name of each participating firm under a bold listing of the year it was established. Add desired contact information to complete the message. Arrange the boxes on the page or pages according to the year established. Begin with the oldest and continue right up to the newest startups on your account list. Bill the ads at your open column inch rate to experience a high return from each page. 2 FEBRUARY Valentine's Day Double Truck Start out with a unique single or process color background of red and pink hearts or other traditional symbols of the holiday. Sell local gift stores, clothing stores, grocery stores, restaurants and florists set size ads to be laid on top of the background. Offer both black and white and process color ads. We have the best response offering 2x6, 3x5 and 3x101 ⁄ 2 ad si zes. There' still great opportunity selling Valentine's Day ads but being successful requires much effort than a few years ago. 3 MARCH Easter Funny Bunny Money Promotion This is a different twist of the bunny's tail. It is centered around having a costumed Easter Bunny handing out packs of Bunny Money (coupons) good for discounts on Easter fashions, groceries, restaurant meals, holiday decorations and basket treats. Have the person in the bunny suit distribute the Funny Money along downtown streets and at key business strips during advertised hours the Saturday before Palm Sunday. Sell the coupons and participation in a promotional page to your retailers at a price that will cover the ad page, the printing of the coupons and the cost of having someone being the Bunny. Offer reasonable discounts to firms that buy a second, third and fourth coupon. 4 APRIL Everything on Wheels Section Springtime draws readers outside. This section is designed to draw readers into car and truck dealerships, RV and motorcycle businesses, four-wheeler stores, lawn and garden tractor outlets and bicycle shops. Sell ads in the tabloid by pointing out it reaches the unique male audience with a large selection of whatever item on wheels currently interests them. This project works best as a tabloid sold only as quarter-, half- and full-page ads. For extra dollars include advertisers offering accessories and vehicle service. 5 MAY Hospital Salute Section May is Hospital Month and the health industry is one of the best growth markets for community newspapers. Gain your share with a locally produced tabloid reporting each facility's unique and exceptional services. Sell the section in page units priced about 150 percent your regular rate by offering a page of editorial material, provided by the hospital, for every page of advertising. 6 JUNE Four Wonderful Weekend Vacations Multi-Week Promotion Keep it local. Work with local motels, bowling alleys, golf courses, resorts, various restaurants and outdoor events to create four weekend vacations full of local flavor. Sell two to three pages of 2x7-inch ads to run repeat over eight weeks. Each package includes free Weekend Vacation posters, a registration box and registration blanks. Have all the participating firms draw a possible vacation winner every two weeks and share that name with the newspaper. The paper then draws the actual vacation winner from that group. Doing so will give smaller merchants an equal opportunity with larger stores to have a winner. Let the store where the individual registered call the winner with the good news and have the winner pick up their prize package at that store. Be sure to offer the package to all the firms providing the various prizes. Already being in the limelight, they need to cash in on the greater value of the traffic created by the weekly registration. 7 JULY Red, White and Blue Sale This is an easy one. Do a special sale the week before the Fourth of July – right before traditional summer discounts – offering free red or blue spot color with every ad. Bunch the ads together to create an "I love America image". We have the best results offering only eighth and quarter page ads. 8 AUGUST End-of-Season Percentage Off Sale This is designed more for building improved customer relations then for producing exceptional additional revenue. The deal is simple: The ads are open rate card rates, no By PETER WAGNER

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