I AM GUILTY

At the IFPA meeting in New Orleans they hosted a media buyers panel made up of David Crawford, former media buyer and now with SRDS, 2 other media buyers and Tim Bingaman from CVC as host and moderator. The information that they gave to the audience was very valuable. They gave some great insight into the media buying process and what is important to media buyers.

I found it interesting to hear them speak of a "Dead Room" full of printed media kits that no one looks at anymore. Media buyers want their information electronically. They referred to these rooms as the room of broken dreams. I also found it interesting that they do want relationships with the media and find it most useful when representatives go out of their way to state their case on particular accounts or advertisers.

One thing that they stressed is the importance of audited circulation. When they have the choice, they said audited wins every time. This is where my guilt comes in. I am behind on my quarterly audit reports. I put it on the back burner, feeling I have so many more important things to get done. I had the best intentions of getting them caught up and then having my circulation manager complete the task going forward on a weekly basis. That just makes sense, doesn't it?

I know there are many of you that have been behind on your audit reports - misery likes company, they say. After hearing the media buyer’s discussion, I know that I need to move the project to the front burner and get them up to date as soon as I can, and keep them that way. To help the free paper industry, please keep your audits up to date. It is important, as an industry that we continue to plead our case that our papers continue to thrive and that our circulations are not plummeting like the dailies - this could be our chance to finally convince media buyers of the strength of our local circulation.

Your PaperChain committee has been working hard to make a small budget work to promote the free paper industry. One of our key allies in the promotion is our inclusion and prominent positioning on the SRDS platform, where media buyers look to find information about advertising opportunities in markets around the country. Douglas Fry from SAPA put together a great "sizzle reel" about the power of our papers that is on the SRDS site for media buyers to view. They played it at the IFPA conference for all to see, and you can view it, too, by going to the PaperChain site at: http://www.paperchainnetwork.net

Watch for more information about how PaperChain and the Free Paper Industry are using SRDS to help us spread the good news that in the free paper world, print is not dead!