Martin Till's Advice for Advertising Leadership

Martin Till, publisher of the Express-Times in Easton, Pennsylvania, shared some advertising strategies with API. He will be leading the session "Critical Issues in the Fight for Market Share" at API's Advertising Leadership seminar, July 23-28 2006.

API: What are the critical issues in the fight for market share?

Martin Till: Basic leadership. The best strategies and the best tactics are not enough. You need the leadership that can establish all that. The days of the ad department being singular in their goal - as the ones who find the new revenue - are over. It's not just the responsibility of the ad department, distribution, or circulation. Everybody has to be a part of the planning.

API: How have you applied these ideas at the Express-Times?

MT: Everything we do is with all departments included. If it's a special section that advertising's doing, we make sure that the newsroom is involved so that there are no surprises. Other people can also bring in new ideas.

API: What changes have been made to incorporate these methods of production?

MT: Our process of doing things has changed. Before, we would just put out a memo that told people what was going on. Now we don't do that. We're creating an online document that asks for the input of all departments.

API: What are some differences between smaller and larger papers when it comes to reaching advertisers?

MT: I think the smaller newspapers have better opportunities because we can get to know all our advertisers more personally, from the salesperson to the publisher. We can affect and touch the decision makers every day. A lot of the larger newspapers don't have the opportunity. We still have a lot of local ad dollars that we can control by knowing who the people are.

API: What is the potential for online advertising?

MT: I think it's there. I think it just allows us to garner a much larger relationship with our advertisers and our customers. We need to simplify the process with our customers to work with us online.