Newspaper sales and the Do Not Call Registry
Tish Grier at Poynter E-Media Tidbits wonders how much the National Do Not Call Registry has affected newspaper circulation sales. The short answer is a ton.
I don't have the figures, but we saw an immediate drop off back in '03 when we couldn't call people at home and peddle the paper. It was harder to reach people who subscribed for three months at a time, let it drop and waited for the expected call to re-up. (Yes, there were a lot of those.) We had created a habit, fed it and then stopped cold turkey.
We responded with a greater presence at kiosks and grocery stores and public gatherings, but the sales were costlier at a time when we weren't all that interested in costly things.
I wouldn't say that the Do Not Call Registry is the industry's major problem when dealing with circulation declines, but it shut down a good sales option at a time when we needed all the sales options we could get. Hmmm...maybe we could get a registry of e-mail addresses of non-subscribers and....nah.
Full disclosure: My phone number is on the registry...but, of course, I wasn't getting calls from the newspaper as I am a seven-day subscriber.
Comments (3)
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Shifting newspapers' delivery from youth carriers to adults hurt circulation, too. The best salespeople we ever had were those 11-, 12- and 13-year-old kids who met the customer face-to-face on the doorstep and asked for the order. The kids worked a lot harder than adults for a small sales commission, too. Oh, for the good old days.
Posted on March 18, 2008 8:41 AM
John, it appears the N&R has again dropped the ball. The Do Not Call Registry allows marketers to continue calling customers for up to a year or more after having done business with that customer. Therefore, if a customer subscribes for 3 months then your marketing department has the right to resell that customer by telephone as long as you do so before the time runs out.
No wonder your paper is being primed for sale-- no one is taking care of business.
Posted on March 18, 2008 9:18 AM
Thanks, Billy.
I probably overstated the case. We had good advice on the interpretation of the "established relationship" clauses in the legislation. I was thinking of the the caveat in which a customer asks a company not to call, even there is an established relationship. Then you're stuck.
Posted on March 18, 2008 1:01 PM