NewsBeat

December 2016 NewsBeat 3 Plans for 2017 TRAINING: NYPA's spring convention will be held April 7th and 8th in Saratoga Springs. For the first time, members of NYNAME (New York Newspaper Advertising and Marketing Executives — a branch of the New York News Publishers Association) and FCPNY (Free Community Papers of New York – the association representing Pennysavers and Shoppers) will participate in the conference. This important and historic partnership recognizes the high degree of duplication of members in the three organizations, and in our shared goal of collaborating to maximize resources. A new addition to the conference program will be a special "Family Business Owners" track Saturday afternoon. The NYPA board of directors is grateful for the support of the leadership of NYNAME and FCPNY and looks forward to taking advantage of the synergies and shared strength of this collaboration. The main site for the conference will be the Gideon Putnam Hotel and Conference Center, and the Hilton Garden Inn, the Palladium Grand, and the Marriott Courtyard will offer discounted room rates and free shuttle services to conference attendees. The fall publishers conference will be held at Westin Buffalo September 15th and 16th. In addition to a fabulous educational program, a winery tour and tasting will be held at Peller Estates (Winery of the Year in 2016) followed by a grand dining experience in the Barrel Cellar, ending with ice wine and marshmallows toasted over an open fire in the vineyard. RESOURCES/SUPPORT/ADVOCACY: Bryan Boyhan and Joe Shaw are hard at work, writing the "Community 360 Playbook" — a blueprint to help newspapers to implement the recommendations of NYPA's Community Newspaper Sustainability Study. When the writing is finished, we'll travel the state, conducting workshops to share our experiences and talk about barriers to entry and ideas for getting this project off the ground in your newsroom. NYPA board president David Tyler is busy recruiting editorial ambassadors to shepherd the new content sharing project. The success of the project will be dependent on the continued commitment of editors throughout the state — uploading quality content to the site on a daily or weekly basis — and downloading and using content that has been uploaded by other contributors. The web-based platform has lots of bells and whistles, and custom embargoes to protect the use of your copyrighted content. Look for more information in January. NYPA president-elect Mark Vinciguerra will be working with NYPA and a cadre of consultants on the newly created Institute for Circulation and Audience Development, to provide a broad range of services to help news organizations to attract and keep new readers and visitors; to increase revenue and profitability, decrease expenses, and increase efficiencies related to circulation/audience development activities; to improve the total customer experience, increase engagement, and reduce churn. Proposed services include: • Audit of circulation department including pricing analysis, distribution analysis, postal analysis, single copy analysis, billing and auto pay analysis, content marketing analysis, social media marketing analysis, and branding analysis. • Collaboration with vendors to provide discounted services including telemarketing, direct mail, billing, collections, event execution and marketing, in store promotion materials, member loyalty programs, and graphic design. • Create a council to assist with postal issues and to consider alternative delivery options via logistics Overall goals of this initiative are: • To increase revenue, profitability, efficiencies, audience, brand awareness, loyalty, engagement. • To drive visitors to news websites in droves and efficiently turn those visitors into a loyal, enthusiastic, engaged audience whose email addresses are nestled snugly in newspaper audience databases — all without paying a penny to Google. • To utilize analytics to develop content strategies that result in sustained growth trajectories • To create a USPS council in NY State, which will include ongoing dialoguewith USPS officials to improve service provided to publishers. Included in this will be a quarterly postal meeting with publishers and officials from the postal service. To fund this initiative, the NYPA board of directors has authorized NYPS to withhold an additional 1% holdback on display advertising placements. Increasing the holdback by 1% will generate more than $100,000 annually, which will be used exclusively to provide low cost or no cost circulation and audience development services to NYPA member newspapers. The NYPA Foundation is accepting applications for the 2017 summer internship program. Detailed information is available on page 20 of this newsletter and on NYPA's website: nynewspapers.com The Better Newspaper Contest entry portal is open for entries into the 2016 contest. Access the portal at www.nynewspapers.com Start processing your entries now — the deadline is January 10th. NYPA works hard every year to preserve and protect public notices, and in addition to working with legislators, NYPA encourages publishers to adopt best practices to make notices accessible and readable. Please see Ed Henninger's suggestions on page 17 this newsletter for publishing public notices. NYPA is working with state press associations across the country to mount a comprehensive, ongoing advertising campaign promoting the value, power and importance of print and digital news organizations. Our goal isto launch a coordinated effort in late spring. NYPS will work with state press associations and member newspapers to reinvent and rebuild our once powerful statewide classified advertising networks. We're considering repackaging the offerings to add Facebook advertising and digital ads on news websites to our current print offerings. Member newspapers can easily create an important new revenue stream by teaching staff how to sell into the classified network. Newspapers selling into the network keep 60% of every ad they sell (a statewide display ad sells for $3500 – 60% of that is $2100!) The network is a simple upsell — no effort required. Call us if you would like us to teach your staff how to sell into the network. In the meantime, there is a short sales training video on the NYPA website. Revenue from the statewide classified network covers the cost of dues for many NYPA members, and helps to fund the libel hotline and other NYPA expenses. Revenue from membership dues represents less than 3% of NYPA's consolidated operating revenue, so NYPA can't cover its costs without the financial support provided by the statewide network. Selling into the network is a win for everyone. NYPA's mission in 2017 is to help newspapers focus on what's important: • Maximizing resources • Growing circulation and audience • Growing revenue • Creating the right content Our 2017 tagline: Newspaper's Next: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! 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