Promote gift subscriptions to grow circulation with sampling

Kate Decker

Aug 1, 2021

As more individuals are getting vaccinated across the country, events are being scheduled again, capacities are increasing and we can start to plan get-togethers.
What better gift this coming holiday season than a connection to community with a gift subscription to your local community newspaper?

Now is the time to start promoting gift subscriptions. People will start their holiday–to–buy lists in the coming months, so get in front of them now.

Do this not only in the pages of your newspaper targeting loyal readers who already know your value, but also target a nearby community or every household in your town.

Create some house ads with photos of people connecting at sporting events, community events and fun, paid events in years past (probably not too many recent photos to choose from, but try to use as recent as possible).

To capture the new readers, you could do a pre-holiday sampling promotion.

Pick a few upcoming weeks that you know you will have great editions and select the area(s) you wish to target. Plan ahead so you can sell your advertisers on this expanded circulation. NNA members should watch a recording of the recent NNA-member webinar, Pub Aux Live! Newspaper Sampling for details on how to select the area, plan with the Post Office and ensure a return on investment.

You'll hear all the need-to-know details from postal experts, NNA Postal Chair Matt Paxton, publisher of The News-Gazette in Lexington, Virginia; NNA Postal Chair Emeritus Max Heath, postal consultant; NNA Director of Public Policy Tonda Rush and Interlink CEO Brad Hill.

NNA members have access by logging into on NNAFoundation.org, then visiting: https://www.nnafoundation.org/pub-aux-live-newspaper-sampling