Alternative Weekly Network Sales News

At this time, AWN publications appear to have very little compliance in the area of e-tearsheets, at least in terms of automated e-tearsheet delivery. Results from our survey of 68 AWN publications were varied, but somewhat conclusive (see below for results from the Survey Monkey platform).

Late in the first quarter, we began to survey AWN publishers as to their digital tear sheet capabilities, something that had not been done as a network up to that point. The increased demand to improve the slow pay cycle of the unwieldy network, and the movement of AWN print products to digital publishing platforms pointed toward a solution. Unfortunately, nearly 20% of AWN publishers still cannot provide any form of digital tearsheets, and nearly all are not signed into a commercial vendor or network delivery of e-tearsheets.

1% use a commercial vendor to deliver e-tearsheets and PDF versions of their pages
5% have an FTP site set up to provide PDF versions of the pages
9% have a web-based portal for obtaining PDF versions of pages
55% will provide digital pages upon request
and those not able to comply in any fashion…
18% cannot provide any form of digital tearsheets

Results based on a survey of 68 AWN publications Feb-March 2008.

A collection of alt weekly web sites grouped together by their long-time print ad cooperative Alternative Weekly Network (AWN) now represent a healthy 8,735 Million unique visitors monthly, compared to roughly half that number in April 2007.

Web publishers’ impressive gains over last year are not a surprise to AWN Executive Director Mark Hanzlik who reported the good news to members of the 12-year-old cooperative after collecting the figures from approximately 150 alt weekly web sites. “It’s nice to see this kind of growth in our network, whether it’s from increased visitors on alt weekly sites, or by adding additional sites to our cooperative network. Either way, we’re now making an impressive imprint in the digital world, and can now take our product to market more effectively.”

Over the past year, AWN effectively joined the online marketplace by establishing an online version of their successful print cooperative, pushed improvement of their sites’ advertising capabilities, and delivered campaigns to 38 new online advertisers.

Over the past 12 years, AWN’s accumulated gross billings have reached $163 million. The independent cooperative uses a member-empowered sales structure—fielding the industry’s single largest sales force on behalf of more than 150 publications and web sites in AWN’s growing sales roster.

The member-empowered sales structure allows ad reps from all publications to sell ads into the entire network. The unique sales structure has been a potent force in reaching advertisers in all parts of the country and driving a significant amount of regional business for member papers. “Over the years, reps from more than 50 AWN papers have been active in the sales process,” explained John Morrison, AWN Sales Director. “It’s sometimes a challenge to manage all the sales activity, but that’s not a bad problem to have, and it’s been made far easier because of the common vision and tremendous cooperation of our members.”

We have attempted to supply AWN publishers annually with an updated DMA ranker report, we may have missed the last year or so. Here it is 2007-2008 Nielsen Media Research Broadcast Household Estimates.

The biggest jump in 2007-08 was Las Vegas from 51 to 44, and largest drop was New Orleans from 43 down to 54. Farther down the list both Boise, ID and Wilmington, NC jumped 5 spaces forward. The list is attached in PDF format below.

dma_nielsen-07-08.pdf

We sent an invitation to 130 publishers asking them to complete a short survey using Survey Monkey a few weeks ago.  We’ve received only  65 responses to the survey through 3/31/08.   We want to hear your thoughts regarding digital tearsheets and related subjects concerning tearsheets and billing.   Next month in this column we’ll share the results with all AWN members.  Here’s the original email communication if you’ve lost the email or link to respond.

In order for us to continue to improve our ability to process print advertising, we are requesting your response to the brief online survey. We’ve received requests from various advertisers concerning e-tearsheets or digital versions of your print product(s) and we would like to help facilitate a better proof-of-publication process between publishers, advertisers and agencies.

Here is a link to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=uEyAlQpKzVbHm7YxPA5dCA_3d_3d

Sarah Billingsley becomes the newest member of the AWN back office crew this week filling the Ad Coordinator position that had been vacant since the holiday season.

Many of you may have already met Sarah as she has worked for more than a decade in the alternative newspaper industry with stints at The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Independent Weekly and Sacramento News & Review. Sarah came to Hanzlik Media following a five-year run with the Sacramento News & Review (in various advertising department roles including Advertising Director most recently). Sarah has also recently returned to college too.

Sarah’s advertising, sales and administrative experience will be helpful in the job she has been assigned at Hanzlik Media. The AWN Advertising Coordinator position requires processing a large amount of detail, but also communicating and responding to AWN publications quickly, intelligently and accurately. Sarah knows the business, and many of you, so she has a bit of a head start, but she’ll be on a quick learning curve with the growing number of online ads processed through Hanzlik Media and the steady flow of AWN print schedules.

Sarah, who has spent a majority of her career in Northern California, hails from Upstate New York. She currently resides in Carmichael with her husband, Michael who is the Distribution Director for the News & Review.

If you haven’t met Sarah yet, give her a ring or send a short email. 916-551-1770 x27 sarah@awn.org.

Sarah’s already hard at work, cranking out insertion orders to AWN publishers!