Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Last minute TV book scramble

February 13th, 2009 at 09:42am Linda Grist Cunningham

About 1,600 more readers opted in this week for the Sunday TV book delivery, bring the total to about 25 percent of all subscribers. That’s a nice round number; it’s less than half what we expected, 12 percentage points below my personal prediction — and way under the “everyone reads it and wants it” that some of my callers estimated.

That’s good news for everyone: The newspaper saves cash on newsprint; the environment saves a couple tress; the advertisers get a perfectly targeted audience; TV fans get their book; and every one else gets the seven-day grids or downloads online. That’s called delivering targeted content over multiple platforms.

A couple important things to know about the book: (1) You can continue to opt-in (or opt-out); this wasn’t a one-time deal. (2) If you’ve opted in, you may receive your TV book on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Carriers have the option of delivering it early to your house, so be sure you’re looking for it. In fact, we know some folks have already received this Sunday’s TV book.

I’ve always known that multiple advertising and marketing approaches worked. What we did with the TV book opt-in was a classic example. We had a product some people really wanted. We needed to reach them directly. So we advertised the opt-in program in the newspaper and online in several different ways — including in the TV book itself. Within 24 hours, thousands of readers had responded, and over the next three weeks,  about 12,000 subscribers said “send me the book.”

The advertising worked seamlessly. The subscriber gets her product, and we reached exactly the people we wanted to reach.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

2 Comments Add your own

  • 1. the dude abides  |  February 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Any plans to reduce the advertising rates on the TV book by 25%? Yes, it’s more targeted, but that doesn’t exactly speak highly of the previous, more scattered product.

    Not exactly a direct analogy, but if I started removing lettuce, tomato, or beef from your hamburger, but I kept the price the same, do you think my customers would complain?

  • 2. hokumboy  |  February 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Actually that seems like a pretty good analogy, dude. It seems to me that they already removed most of the meat from the burger when their best writers were “retired”.

Leave a Comment

Required

Required, hidden

Security Code:

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed