Clarity Strategic^TM

Tim Edgar, an Akron Beacon Journal regional sales trainer, explained the science of recruiting new newspaper customers to me. He told me how newspapers aren't done being vital to Americans yet. Sure, people get their information off the Internet these days. And many social media players are convinced that this tendency is the reason we know newsprint is doomed.

Thing is, it's not.

How do the brick & mortar businesses we know today get people to visit their stores? Guess what? It's not through the Internet. You can make a case for most of them still benefitting from trying to develop community via the Internet, but I have yet to see a case for dragging a mom & pop shop kicking and screaming into the Internet Age. If they don't know how to do it right, they also seldom have time or money to learn. I know: I've done Web sites for some of these people. No, no, the way to drive brick & mortar traffic is still through local connections: that is through the newspapers.

What about Craigslist? you may ask. What about it? I will respond. It's free, and it's gone the way of every historical expression of the Internet to also allow free ads: it's full of spam. It's full of fake ads. And it's full of predators. No offense intended to Craig Newmark, but Craigslist may be fine for selling a used TV. MAYbe. It's not the right way to draw local traffic into a reputable business.

Edgar explained to me - patiently, I might add - that newspaper readers can potentially save money, through (a) clipping coupons, (b) local sales ads, and (c) classifieds offering that thing you need. The local advertisers know this to be true, and will spend more on local newspaper ads by far than they will on their Web sites for exactly this reason. They know that that coupon that gets a customer 50 cents off on one item might well lead to an impulse buy of a bigger-ticket item. The Internet does not do this. It's not built that way. Yet.

There is also the issue of Internet coupons. What costs consumers more, both in time and money? Buying the paper and clipping? Or looking for the Web site and printing the coupons? If you said the latter, I submit to you that you're nuckin' futs. LOL

No, from a marketing perspective there is enough potential money coming from both local businesses and local customers to keep many local and regional newspapers alive for some time to come. That life may not be as healthy as we knew when we were kids: journalism is a tough profession to break into these days. Hundreds of writers are laid off. They're out there (hopefully, from their point of view) blogging, and trying to build an audience.

EXCEPT... there's also ValPak and the newsprint mailers that include the bargains only. How do the newspapers compensate for those things, which come free to everyone's mailbox? Well... there they must turn to their NEWS. Which they still must make compelling for readers, and they have to write about what readers care about. In the Information world, content must and shall be King.

I need to find out next how the Beacon (because that's my local paper and I can study it) is leveraging its access to premium content (such as that written by Betty Lin-Fisher, for instance) and turning that into a compelling reason for locals to read its pages at least on Sunday, if not every day. There's where the Internet's competitive advantage is really felt.