An interesting and fair article about the newspaper business that explains pretty well where we stand right now.

http://www.urlzen.com/wyt

Sunday home delivery circulation is growing at the Tennessean.

Yep, that’s not a misprint, our Sunday home delivery circulation is growing in the 17 counties of our MSA. Allow me to provide some details.

Earlier this year, we made the decision at the Tennessean to pull back on home delivery in several outlying counties. It just didn’t make sense to continue to lose money on newspapers we delivered in those counties. However, we set up several agreements with wholesalers in those areas and we have been able to recover 68% of what we stopped delivering. And, due to how we arranged the wholesaler agreements, we did so profitably.

But our main focus is on 17 core counties in our MSA. These are the counties most important to our advertisers and, in July, we made the decision to invest a significant amount of money for sales and marketing efforts to grow circulation in these counties.

It’s working.

For the first week of October, Sunday home delivery circulation was up 129 copies versus last year. This last Sunday, we were up 1,649 copies.

And it’s not just the sales and marketing efforts that are making a difference. Good journalism, like the story Jaime Sarrio did on Sunday, October 4, about misuse of credit cards among Metro School officials is earning rave reviews from readers. The feedback from that story along with others tells us that people are hungry for good investigative journalism and will respond by buying the newspaper when they think we are doing a good job.

We will continue to update the circulation numbers in the weeks and months ahead.

From the dancing Thai prisoners tribute to Michael Jackson to a bunch of pre-teens showing each other how to “smoke” Smarties, some videos have the quality that makes them viral. When it can be done in support of a brand – like Dove’s Real Beauty campaign – it becomes a powerful marketing tool. 

So when I received an email recently from a local business that outlined plans for an upcoming promotional campaign, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they included “viral video campaigns.” But it did stop me. Mostly because I found the idea a little presumptuous. How did they know their message was going to go viral? I realize they wanted it to, but that’s not really how it works. 

Now I’m no expert, so I was pleased that my position was reinforced the next day in a post on AdAge.com that stated “a marketer or agency DOES NOT DECIDE WHAT IS VIRAL.” In this case the comment was about a video from Microsoft that it did not intend to go viral. But whether for good or bad, viral videos or other communication are exactly that – viral – because they spread without any real control. 

Of course, this desire to control communication when you don’t control the channel is nothing new. Traditionally, marketers have tried to control what gets reported and covered through the media. Whether it’s a company wanting coverage for a new product, or an organization seeking support for its cause, every day there is great energy expended to influence what you read in the newspaper or see on TV. But now so much communication is driven by the consumer, the blogger, and the teenager sharing what she thinks is funny with friends. So naturally, that’s who we want to control. 

The scary part is that at least most news outlets have guidelines about what they report. As cryptic as they may seem at times, seasoned PR people can learn to be successful. Can we do the same thing with the millions of people driving the conversation on the web? That’s yet to be seen. Just as the media has to get comfortable with losing some control of the conversation, so too do marketers have to get used to losing some control over their message. 

But what remains true today, as it’s always been, are the fundamentals upon which you build your business and marketing. Good products and services, genuine customer care, a strong sense of what your company stands for, and a willingness to be a part of the community in which you do business will always serve you well. Then you can work to communicate these things in fun and entertaining ways … and if you’re lucky, go viral.

What do Kroger, General Motors, Macy’s and American Express have in common?

If you guessed that they are all Fortune 100 companies, you would be correct.

General Motors #6
Kroger #22
American Express #74
Macy’s #96

For those of you who answered this by saying that each of these companies had a full page ad in last Wednesday’s paper – you would also be correct (Macy’s actually had two pages).

These are four of America’s largest companies and each of them has very smart people handling their marketing. They advertise with the Tennessean because they know we reach hundreds of thousands of middle Tennesseans every day and that we reach their best customers.

In case you are wondering about other Fortune 100 companies – the following have advertised with us in the past 30 days:

Wal Mart #2
Ford #7
AT&T #8
Verizon #17
Proctor and Gamble (think Sunday coupons) #20
Home Depot #25
Target #28
Johnson and Johnson (think Sunday coupons) #29
Walgreens #36
Lowes #47
Sears #49
Kraft (think Sunday coupons) #53
Best Buy #56
Sprint #64
Comcast #68
HCA #88
Rite Aid #100

I quickly reviewed the list and know I would find more if I spent a few minutes with it.

These companies didn’t become very large and successful because they make bad marketing decisions. They all understand the benefits of advertising with newspapers, including the Tennessean.

So the next time someone tells you that no one is advertising in the Tennessean you can tell them that’s true, if no one means about a quarter of the largest companies in the United States.