10 easy and inexpensive exercises that can make a difference

The following was taken from Stephen Johnson's presentation to API's Circulation Executives seminar.

1. To increase subscriber retention, send thank-you letters to a segment of your customers. Include, if you can, a reward you can tie with advertisers or a value-added benefit. Try 15 a week and see what the reaction is.
2. And while you're at it, thank your fellow workers for their good work. We get so focused on other things that we forget to do this as often as we should. Did you ever come home at night and say, "The boss took me to lunch today"?

3. To help recruit the best talent to your newspaper, select five top-notch companies in your area, collect their help wanted ads and compare them to your own. What would you change? (McDonald's & Taco Bell examples: Join a team. We want stars. Looking for a select few who want to excel. We want champions not only winners. Looking for a career versus a job?) For other examples, look to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Brandweek or Adweek classifieds.

4. Leverage office billing: Every piece of mail leaving your newspaper, no matter what the size of your operation, should have a product/value-added promo piece inserted and the newspaper logo prominently displayed on the envelopes.

5. Experiment with grace periods by subscription type: This is an often-forgotten metric that creates churn by type of subscription. Systems that count down do not differentiate days and weekends. Grace periods are a marketing tool, not just a financial department rule.

6. Spend one day with a major retail account or advertising client, getting to know the business, challenges and opportunities. This can be eye opening and lead to unforeseen opportunities for your newspaper.

7. Invite a leader from a key account or from the community to talk to your newspaper regarding high-priority subjects. This helps promote different viewpoints and builds relationships.

8. Take your in-paper promotion seriously. Years ago when USA TODAY added its 800 number to the color registration bar at the bottom of each section, voluntary orders doubled.

9. Prominently display a score card! People really do want to understand where things stand and how actions are impacting goals.

10. Break down measurements to understandable levels: If you're counting customer complaints, track the raw number rather than complaints per 1,000; for returns, try numbers per day by outlet type rather than percentages.