Jerry Kackley is president of K Group in Scottsdale, Arizona, and has more than 20 years of experience as a senior marketing executive. His firm serves the newspaper industry in circulation and advertising pricing, sales compensation and sales management. A featured discussion leader at API's Value Optimized Pricing (Sept. 20-21), Kackley shares eight rules to create positive momentum with high growth advertisers.

Rule #1: Price to Improve Momentum.
In a pricing model built around the concept of momentum, prices are set based on the momentum contribution of the section, day of the week, or product. For products with lots of positive momentum, lower the price so that more advertisers use the product. Yields go up, advertisers get better results, and growth resumes because of reduced levels of negative momentum.

Rule #2: Make Bold Proposals.
Bold proposals produce positive momentum. Bold proposals match what is actually happening when advertisers grow today. They grow a lot - 70 percent year-over-year. Newspapers need to focus their resources over a narrow period of time in an effective medium to break through the clutter.

Rule #3: Move Advertisers above the Results Threshold.
Results thresholds rule in business. Advertisers that advertise less than a certain number of weeks - varying by market - don't get results. Advertisers need to be convinced to cross threshold boundaries. When they do, negative momentum drops dramatically.

Rule #4: Add New Products Carefully.
Adding products in a meaningful way means picking products that build audience for advertiser and investing enough money to actually see a result. A good rule of thumb is to invest at least twice the amount of incremental audience, so an 8 percent incremental audience requires 16 percent incremental investment.

Rule #5: Turn on the Appropriate Growth Engine.
Growth engines drive positive momentum. Four primary growth engines that must be managed by sales representatives designing an advertiser's campaign are: number of weeks advertised, number of advertisements per week, advertisement size and color. Advertisers that turn on the correct growth engine at the correct time experience an average growth rate of 17 percent.

Rule #6: Build Audience during Peaks.
The essence of strategic thrust advertising is to advertise against natural peaks. Attract new customers during the peak when they are most "open" to an advertising message, and they will be customers during the off peaks.

Rule #7: Incentives for the Sales Force.
Sales representatives should be paid to drive positive momentum by basing active account goals against advertisers' peak months. Focus representatives on identifying and closing prospective customers with that month's peak.

Rule #8: Wear Your Momentum Hat Every Day.
Negative momentum strikes when least expected. The newspaper industry no longer has the luxury to simply look at top-line revenue produced by new programs or products. Rebuilding the advertising sales department around momentum rules is a big part of the solution to downward revenue trends. The times demand a new approach to selling, a new approach to driving results for valued advertisers.

A WIN-WIN for you and your organization

API is offering two new seminars, Value Optimized Pricing (Sept. 20-21) and Digital Delivery (Nov. 8-9), that can help you make better decisions about developing and integrating your product and advertising portfolio.

At the Value Optimized Pricing seminar, you'll a get two days of new ideas and profit-generating tactics from a distinguished group of cross-media experts who will share pricing strategies for leveraging product and advertising portfolios to increase the value proposition for your customers and organization.

For more information about both seminars, contact API Associate Director and seminar moderator Mary Peskin, 703-715-3336.

Robert G. Picard, a leading expert on media economics and management, will be a featured discussion leader at API's Value Optimized Pricing seminar, Sept. 20-21, in Reston, Va. A consultant and business school professor, his blog The Media Business is one of the most read blogs on media business issues. Dr. Picard offers tips on newspapers and news pricing in the digital age.

On Digital Reader Pricing
Newspaper publishers are now seriously testing and considering a variety of e-readers as ways to reduce production and distribution costs. As part of their strategies, however, they would do well to learn from the experience of the music and book business. They need to remember that a basic rule of business is that if you don't control price, you don't control your business.

On Online Advertising Prices
Do not put yourself in the position of merely accepting the ad suppliers' price and payment for advertising appearing in your digital product. The digital space and audience contact that you provide is the product and service being purchased and some contact is more valuable than others. Know how your value compares to that of competitors and set your prices according. Don't be a price taker, be a price maker. Digital advertising will not grow to become an important part of your business if you let the most important decision of the revenue model reside in someone who does not care about your business.

On the Need to Think More Broadly About Monetization
News organizations are struggling to maintain themselves and develop digital operations by primarily focusing on the two revenue streams they have known in recent decades: subscriptions and advertising. Many people are being disappointed because those are failing to provide sufficient financial resources to sustain their operations.
In both the online and offline news worlds, a wide variety of revenue generating activities are appearing -- some based on traditional subscriber/single copy sales and advertising sales -- but many others moving into new areas of monetization.

On Price Setting Challenges
Today, however, product and price choices are getting much more complex because of rising competition and because media are shifting from 2-sided to multi-sided platforms in which relationships among consumers are compounded. This complexity is evident in the difficulties newspapers and magazines are having figuring out effective ways to provide and sell content online.

The problem occurs because there are paying audiences and advertisers for the print edition; free audiences and paying advertisers for the online edition; and some joint audience and advertisers who use both the print and online offerings. If one alters the free price online to create a paying audience, it not only affects the willingness of online advertisers to pay, but affects the willingness of joint audiences and advertisers to pay and thus effects performance of the print sales as well.

Those who think they can easily monetize newspapers, magazines, or other information products online ignore the significant challenges posed by multi-sided platforms and need to carefully consider the impact that these factors have on product and price choices.

On Consumer Payments and Online Content
It also needs to be recognized that people who are not currently buying newspapers are unlikely to buy subscriptions to online news sites.... If they are not willing to pay for news in print, why will they suddenly be willing to pay for that same news online? If papers can't figure that out, no decision to implement micropayments will end happily.

On Micropayment Systems
The desire to monetize online news is leading some to enthusiastically promote micropayment systems. A number of the leading newspaper sites are leaning toward a cooperative payment system that will allow readers to use a single account to access material at the leading papers. Such a system will not be technically difficult to implement, but getting the price right will be a significant challenge because of transaction costs and significant differences in the economic value of articles.

A WIN-WIN for you and your organization

API is offering two new seminars, Value Optimized Pricing (Sept. 20-21) and Digital Delivery (Nov. 8-9), that can help you make better decisions about developing and integrating your product and advertising portfolio.

At the Value Optimized Pricing seminar, you'll a get two days of new ideas and profit-generating tactics from a distinguished group of cross-media experts who will share pricing strategies for leveraging product and advertising portfolios to increase the value proposition for your customers and organization.

For more information about both seminars, contact API Associate Director and seminar moderator Mary Peskin, 703-715-3336.

It's tough getting the right people and products in the right place at the right time.

That's why API is bringing five urgent and intensive programs together at the same time, in the same place to help you redefine the whole idea of your news organization's role in business today.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

The home base for the "API West" seminars will be Kellogg West Conference Center & Lodge in Pomona, California. The week's offerings will include:

BEYOND THE NEWSROOM (Sept. 13-14)
Resource-strapped newsrooms are finding creative ways to deliver top-notch news and information, from working with local bloggers, tapping into social networks and outsourcing, to partnering on regional coverage and working with non-profits and universities. Learn to pinpoint the opportunities and navigate the pitfalls of collaborative journalism at the local level. (Tuition: $695)

NEW REVENUE MODELS THAT WORK! (Sept. 13-14)
Learn practical strategies and tactics for developing, launching and maximizing a wide array of effective new revenue-generating models, and for making the transition to a more consumer-centric business model. Examine innovative revenue development examples -- ranging from self-serve advertising placement to search services, behavioral targeting, partnerships, mobile applications, and more. (Tuition: $995)

MAXIMIZING SALES FORCE EFFECTIVENESS (Sept. 15-16)
This exclusive API program, developed in partnership with global sales consulting firm ZS Associates, shows you how to re-energize the top line and increase profitable revenue by 10% or more. You'll learn proven processes, drivers and tools for transforming your sales organization, and hear best-practice examples from newspaper organizations currently implementing groundbreaking sales force re-invention initiatives. (Tuition: $995)

THE NEXT GENERATION OF MEDIA MANAGERS (Sept. 15-16)
They may be young and technologically savvy. They may be new to newspapers. You brought them on board to shake up your organization, and now you'd like to give them greater management authority. This management-skills seminar, designed for your most promising future leaders across the organization, covers the basics of communication, self-awareness, cultural savvy and influence. (Tuition: $995)

8 STEPS TO PROFITABLE NEW PRODUCTS (Sept. 17)
A one-day program to help your organization use the new product development process to build innovation, enhance the customer experience and gain competitive advantage. You'll learn how to build a new product development strategy, manage projects throughout the innovation process, create an innovation mindset in the organization, and maintain a portfolio of innovations over time. ($395)

Please click on the above links for details about the programs, fees, and special multiple-seat discounts.

Locally Informed, a New Zealand-based website, offers a new way to provide local news and information to communities. Perhaps more importantly, the startup brings a new way to solve the local "jobs to be done" faced by people every day by leveraging the power of Crowdsourcing and creating incentive-based participation.

"In February of this year, we launched Locally Informed as our solution to the future of local news and partly in response to the results of the (American Press Institute's) Newspaper Next, initiative." said director and co-founder Shane Redlick.

An entrepreneur and technology consultant, Redlick is also co-founder and current owner of Opinion250 News Inc, a hyperlocal news start-up in Northern British Columbia. When Redlick relocated to New Zealand two years ago, he drew on his Canadian experience with creating a strong sense of community and open access to information as the foundation for his new project. Andrew Ross joined Redlick as director and co-founder after the sale of his software company, Kiwi Enterprises , to US-based SolarWinds.

Locally Informed aggregates, organizes and continuously updates local news and information from hundreds of sources on the Internet. Readers can contribute their own stories, local knowledge and photos as well as participate in discussions. The Local Knowledge pages are essentially a hyperlocal Wikipedia. If you visit the site, Auckland City currently has the most activity.

Perhaps the most important and interesting feature on the site is the Solutions Marketplace. According to Redlick, "the Marketplace leverages local knowledge and expertise to help people in the community find new ways of solving the challenges and tasks they face every day." This method of problem or challenge solving is referred to as Crowdsourcing. What Locally Informed does differently, however, is leverage its strengths at a local level and combine it with news and information publishing.

The website has no advertising does not charge for access. Revenue comes from the fee users pay to list a Challenge or Job. "This is the only revenue method we've employed to date on Locally Informed," Redlick said. "Income has been modest, but it is on the increase."

A strong connection between News/Information and the Marketplace is created by the Credits system in which people are compensated for contributing local news and information, photos, and comments. "The more popular a piece of content is that a user contributes, the more Credits he or she earns," said Redlick. "Credits can be used in the Marketplace for both listing Challenges and Jobs as well as compensation for prizes. Also, our team of 11 community editors are all essentially volunteers who've agreed to work on the site and are compensated in Credits."

If you're keen to read more, jump over to the website and have a look. There's a series of Getting Started videos that explain the features in detail.

"Over the past few years, many newspaper organizations have made progress in improving the effectiveness of their sales forces. But there is still a huge opportunity to do more, according to Ron Siahpoosh, Associate Principal of global sales consulting firm, ZS Associates.

Over more than 25 years of experience with thousands of companies, we have determined that the average company can increase profitable revenues by 10% or more by improving their sales force strategy, design and execution," he said. "And through our work this year with American Press Institute, I'm convinced that the same opportunity exists in the newspaper industry, as well. It's a matter of identifying what to improve, and applying proven approaches for making those improvements happen."

Siahpoosh will be the featured instructor at API's Maximizing Sales Force Effectiveness seminar, coming up May 24-25, 2010 in Reston, Virginia. Another offering of the program is scheduled for September 15-16, 2010, in Pomona, California.

During the seminar, participants will learn proven concepts and implementation tools in areas including: sales force strategy, sales force organization, sales process design and implementation, recruiting and talent management, incentive compensation and goal-setting; and more.

This may be the most valuable and productive investment in your organization's success that you make the entire year!

Ninety-four percent of a sampled group of newspaper executives responding to a new American Press Institute survey say they are striving for a full-service "agency" approach to advertising sales, but their current portfolios are underdeveloped, and their staffs have not yet been trained to sell services such as mobile advertising and search engine marketing.

"New API survey shows ad execs still cling to tried and true" »

Is your sales organization ready for the recovery?

Is it structured to take advantage of all the potential in your market?

Can you forecast real sales growth as much as 15% in the next year?

Find out if you will benefit from the program by taking the following self-diagnostic test. It's an easy way to quickly evaluate your sales force structure, and see how well your organization is positioned for maximum effectiveness and success.

"Take this test to rate your sales force effectiveness" »

Several weeks ago we asked weekly publishers and chief revenue officers to take a quick survey telling us a little bit about their market, and then approximately how much revenue each of their territories brings in per year. Here are the results, graphed according to the number of households in the market.

"Sales Resource Optimization, Weekly Edition" »

Which vendors are America's favorites?

API wants to know and we bet you do too.

Increasingly, newspaper companies are embracing third-party digital products and technologies that enable new business models, deliver content and advertising across platforms, maximize efficiencies and enable sustained innovation.

API is launching a nationwide survey to find out which vendors are truly delivering quality solutions to meet our industry's needs -- and we want to make sure your favorite vendors are on the list.

"Nominate your favorite vendor" »

Newspaper organizations can increase revenues by as much as 15% by consistently targeting the best sales opportunities with the right type and amount of sales resource. This revelation is one of many identified in a new American Press Institute white paper report, Sales Resource Optimization: Bringing Science to the Sales Force.

"API reveals huge revenue opportunities through Sales Resource Optimization" »