Changes (hard), Choices (many), Solutions (easy)

From time to time there comes a revolution of sorts, making companies come to the crossroads of change or business as usual. For the banking industry, it was a stock market crash after the housing bubble burst. The change was rapid for the banking industry and in many ways too late for them to make the necessary adjustments to survive.

For newspapers, the change is coming as well. Quite quickly, but not without time to make changes that can be beneficial in the long run for their survival, and possibly be an ushering in of better prosperity. But the change needs to come.

So that begs the question .... what change?

• Staying with business as usual will mean certain death for your print publication
• Going online only has many risks
• Web advertising has been a weak spot for papers
• Paid content hasn't been tested

Let's explore these issues:

Staying with business as usual will mean certain death for your print publication.

True.

It was true in Seattle, it was true in Colorado, is it inevitable in Chicago and even possible in Boston. So print publication business plans are failing as more and more readers get their news from website. Circulation is declining, ad revenue is drying up and printing costs are skyrocketing. It is time to srart taking the web more seriously.

If you think you have already taken the web seriously, think again.

Working in advertising and reporting for small and large newspapers, I can assure you that your sales staff is not taking selling web ads as seriously as their print ads. Some are afraid of selling on a new medium, some staff members don't want to embrace change. Still others have no idea how to sell online ads.

Publishers and managers need to make their sales team web savy. Without that, there is no chance of an advertising model working for you. Without taking the web seriously, your print publication is in danger of failing. Now is the time to make these changes.

Going online only has many risks.

Yes and no.

Being in charge of a web development team specializing in newspaper content management systems, I see everyday what is possible to achieve online in conjunction with a print publication. I do not think the print edition and online edition need to be exclusive. The excitement a reporter or editor gets when breaking a story a day ahead of the competition is something that easily translates to websites. Story can break quicker ... online writers can get a scoop before all others.

With this, breaking news alerts through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and SMS fill your subscribers in boxes. Along with the alerts are content-relevant ads. Links to pages on your site that you have sole exclusivity. Advertisers could pay good money for top placement on those pages.

In the morning, those same advertisers who paid to show up on the breaking news alerts can have their ad tucked within the full, in-depth story of your print publication. Working together, print and online advertising can work.

This leads us to: Web advertising has been a weak spot for papers.

Really? If so, why are there so many websites hosting ads and why are print ads not netting as much profit anymore?

Placement of ads in a print publication can add up. The same is true for your online version. Sure, Google Adsense revenue doesn't even keep the lights on, but maybe pay-per-click is not the answer. In fact, I am a strong believer that pay-per click advertising is terrible for all newspapers.

Do you get paid for a print ad based on the number of readers who respond to a certain ad? Of course not. And pay-per-click advertising is cheapening the value of your newspaper. You have a good product whether in print or online. Now charge for it ... it is time for advertisers to see the value of your site as they do your print publication.

Paid content hasn't been tested.

This is true to a certain extent. Most newspapers have not tried a paid content type of site. Some that have, failed at it (the New York Times for one), yet others have succeeded (the Wall Street Journal).

The good news is that you can have it both ways. We build content management systems that can handle some (or even all) content as paid only. You can choose just breaking news to be free and the rest paid via subscription or per article rates. The choice is yours.

We also make it easy for your business plan to change at any time. If you want to try out a paid service, then change it ... no more programming is necessary. We can do that for you.

But rather than trying to sell you something, let me conclude by saying the options are many for newspapers. We have the ability to make your newspaper succeed online, but it is up to newspapers to make that change. We have the solutions and choices available at any time.