Newspaper organizations can increase revenues by as much as 15% by consistently targeting the best sales opportunities with the right type and amount of sales resource. This revelation is one of many identified in a new American Press Institute white paper report, Sales Resource Optimization: Bringing Science to the Sales Force.

The free report, written in cooperation with global sales and marketing consulting firm ZS Associates, covers topics including:

• Seven obstacles that inhibit newsmedia companies from optimizing sales resources
• Key questions for sales executives
• Essential drivers of a highly effective sales force
• Today's leading SRO approaches and tools
• Why and how to build SRO capability

Click the link to download a free copy of Sales Resource Optimization: Bringing Science to the Sales Force.

Sales Force Effectiveness Seminars

Learn proven methods for applying the concepts in the white paper report by attending one of API's upcoming Maximizing Sales Force Effectiveness seminars.

This may be the most valuable and productive investment in your organization's success that you make the entire year!

Designed in cooperation with ZS Associates, the seminars will provide key insights on organizational structure, right-sizing the sales force, gauging market potential, territory alignment and optimization, training, compensation, and more. Each will include best practice examples from newspaper organizations currently implementing groundbreaking sales force re-invention initiatives.

The first Maximizing Sales Force Effectiveness seminar, presented in partnership with The Newspaper Association of America's mediaXchange conference, will be April 10-11, 2010 in Orlando. API and NAA will offer a $200 combo discount to individuals registered for both events.

The second offering of the seminar will be May 24-25, 2010, at API's campus in Reston, Virginia.

For additional information, please email API Associate Director Mark Mulholland or call 703-715-3300.

Customized Programs

API also provides customized Sales Resource Optimization services to individual newspapers and newspaper companies of all sizes. To find out more, please email API Director of Targeted Solutions Elaine Clisham or call 703-715-3321.

Which business models work online? Should news organizations charge for content? What paid access approaches are successful?

"Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles," a must-have report from the American Press Institute and ITZBelden, informs these critical decisions facing news executives. It provides actionable data, case studies and approaches for success in the transitioning landscape for news.

The insight report provides sharp analysis of the opportunities and obstacles presented by "going paid" and guidelines to help publishers make critical decisions. It examines both replica "e-editions" and paid access Web sites.

This report includes:
 Profiles of 14 current paid access ventures
 Key factors for identifying target audiences
 Ways to overcome negative consumer reaction
 Benchmarks for pricing e-editions and site access
 Comparisons of price and uptake on e-editions
 Tips for creating "low friction" transactions
 Strategies for pricing and promoting "bundled" products
 Impact of pay walls on "sell-through" rates
 Effects of paid access on market share and reader engagement
 Influence of competitive local media on pay models

The package draws from the data collected from the 2009 Executive Survey conducted by API/ITZBelden as well as:
 Proprietary Belden Interactive local market studies on paid content
 Executive interviews conducted by ITZBelden and Alisa Cromer of NewMediaHub.com
 Data analysis by Mather Economics
 Client-submitted information on current paid content practices

"Practices and Profiles in Paid Access" is now available for purchase for $500(US) for individual newspapers. Special rates can be arranged for newspaper groups. The information in the report is not intended for public redistribution or publication in whole or in part.

For more information, please contact Greg Harmon, (415) 556-4348.

To order your report, please contact Kathy Guilfoyle at Itz Publishing, 503-241-3650, or download the order form.

Special offer: Registered participants of the upcoming API seminar, "15 Paths to Paid Online Content," (Feb. 11-12) can purchase the report for $300. This Insight Report and seminar are part of API's Revenue 3.0 Portfolio Series. For information about the seminar, please contact Mary Peskin, (703) 715-3336.

This article is second in a series of paid online content profiles. Each case will be posted on this site as well as included in a list of Paid Content Profiles that you can download by clicking the link

MARY PESKIN | When newspaper publishers look around for a pay model for premium online content, Packer Insider is often at the top of the list. Since 2001, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wis., has offered extended Green Bay Packers content to "Insiders" who currently pay subscription fees for specialized content they can't find elsewhere. For $6.95 a month or $44.95 a year, avid fans can access commentary and analysis from regular columnists, including Bob McGinn, who has covered the Packers since the early 1980s, and twice-weekly live chats with Journal beat writers.

Sharon Prill, SVP & General Manager Business Operations for Journal Interactive said, "We knew that the Green Bay Packers had this unique worldwide appeal, based on a lot of things: partly because of their glory years under Vince Lombardi, partly because of their small-town image, and recently because of Brett Favre. We also knew that we had some of the best NFL beat reporters in the country who were great at giving readers analysis and perspective that they couldn't get anywhere else." Because of their unique position, they decided to separate the analysis and commentary from the regular daily news and feature coverage and put it behind the Packer Insider pay wall.

The Packers' fan base is famously dedicated regardless of the team's performance and is one of the largest in the NFL. Packer Insider offers subscribers expert analysis from beat reporters who spend every day with the team, and, in many cases, have been covering the team for decades. "That coverage gives Packers fans an education they can't get elsewhere," said Prill.

When one longtime Packer Insider columnists retired a couple of years ago, a '60ish lady' wrote one of the columnists saying she loved reading him and participating in his online chats because it gave her the knowledge to talk about the Packers with her son who lived half way across the country. According to Prill, other fans have expressed their appreciation to Insider columnists for "no BS, no bias, just great insight." One reader wrote, "I want to thank you for helping me mature as a Packers fan! I used to have 'blind' faith in everything about the Packers. Having followed your columns and read your chat transcripts, I've developed a more conscientious and realistic approach in the Packers," said Prill.

The staff has learned to love the passion of Packers fans even when they disagree with their commentary. "One fan hoped one of our columnists would be buried next to Chicago Bears icon George Halas so 'when we all go to pee on his grave we can just swing around and hit yours!'" said Prill.

Readers have other sources for sports news and game stories about the Packers, but the Insider beat reporters count on the following of the hardcore fans that depend on them for game analysis and insider knowledge of coaches and players.

The Packer Insider experiment was based more on instinct than market research. "Before we launched in 2001, we didn't do any formal research. We just gave it a shot," said Prill. Since then, the Journal has commissioned a couple of research surveys to measure subscribers' response to the product. The survey results confirmed that readers were willing to pay for the columnists and online chats with Insider reporters. In the most recent survey, 86 percent of subscribers said they were "very likely" or "likely" to continue subscribing.

Respondents indicated that they were only somewhat interested in some of the additional features that were put behind the pay wall. As a result, photo galleries, fan blogs, trivia, etc. are offered on the site for free. Today, Packer Insider has a very simple formula: Analysis, commentary and online chats with reporters. To grow audience in the future, they are considering bundling the premium site with their print publication, Packer Plus, a paid print product with limited distribution via mail and sold at selected retail outlets in Wisconsin. For the newspaper subscriber, the added value of Packer Insider is not as great since many of the columns also appear in the print edition.

The staff believes that subscribers like the content because they hear from enough of them to know. Despite the hundreds of thousands of Packers fans across the world, the number of subscribers is still relatively small. The pay model for online editorial content remains a tough sell. Packers' devotees, as well as other NFL fans, can find sports news and analysis in many places, such as ESPN, other newspaper sites, fan sites and team sites. "Even on our own site, most of the Packers' content is not behind a pay wall," Prill said. "We have been successful compared to other efforts by newspaper Web sites to sell niche content, but the numbers still are not great."

If you're a daily newspaper executive interested in participating in the API/ITZBelden survey of online revenue initiatives, please contact me.

Charging for access to digital content has sparked one of the biggest debates within the newspaper industry. The idea seems to gain momentum whenever another news organization announces it is taking steps to move from free to paid content online.

Newspaper executives are eager to know what their peers in other organizations are doing. What are the current practices in generating revenue from digital content? What are the various pay models? Are they successful? What approaches are news organizations taking to issues like site registration, electronic editions and tracking original content across the Web?

American Press Institute, working in partnership with ITZBelden, set out to answer these questions. Initial results of an ongoing online survey show that industry executives are exploring multiple options for increasing revenue in the short term. You may download a free copy of the Online Revenue Initiatives 2009 report by clicking the link.

MARK MULHOLLAND | Without a doubt, much of the current crises in newspaper revenue can be traced to the loss of the classified franchise to craigslist.com and other non-newspaper classified sites.

Within crisis, however, there may be opportunity. Now more than ever before, newspapers throughout North America have the motivation and the circumstance to create a single classified platform to rival non-newspaper sites - through better leveraging of technology; superior user experience; and a powerful, unified national brand.

In May 2009, the American Press Institute produced a report designed to address the challenges and opportunities of a unified classified platform, with a recommended agenda for action. Creating an Industry-Wide Classified Platform and Brand identifies three areas critical for a solution, and offers detailed suggestions for what will be needed to make such an effort successful. You can download a free copy by clicking the link.

MARY PESKIN | Eager to know what paid content strategies are being launched in other organizations? We checked in with a few dozen newspaper Web sites to find out how they're faring behind online pay walls. Starting today, we'll begin profiling paid content initiatives. You can download the complete list of Paid Content Profiles. We hope you will join in the conversation and add to the list.

Our ongoing research into online revenue strategies shows that many news organizations are considering charging for content online, and they're exploring a number of different pay models.

TideSportsExtra

Since this is the height of football season, our first profile is a niche sports site, TideSportsExtra, launched in August in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Doug Ray, executive editor of the New York Times Co.-owned Tuscaloosa News, recognized the insatiable appetite among University of Alabama football fans for news, features, interaction, and just about anything to do with the Crimson Tide as his best opportunity to persuade readers to register and pay for online content.

MARY PESKIN | Paid content is one of the biggest debates within the newspaper industry. Rocked by declining print circulation and advertising, disruptive Internet technologies and competition from a variety of new players and industries, the traditional bedrock of American journalism stands at a precipice. Pay-for-content models have surfaced as the hope for saving the industry (or at least holding on) as the economics of the Internet, and the behaviors of its consumers, are evolving. Numerous plans have emerged in recent months, fueled by the momentum of paid content ambitions from publishers, vendors and consultants. Each day brings a new vision and a new discussion.

Databases are an indispensable tool in building online audiences and developing new revenue streams. In this new report author Steve Buttry reviews the many ways databases can be employed to enhance news coverage and address critical consumer and business jobs to be done, and discusses some of the organizational and technological decisions that will need to be made as newspapers expand their online database offerings. The report costs $19.95.

To order a copy, please fill in and submit the form below.

Welcome to Newspaper Next 2.0 -- the next generation of Newspaper Next research from the American Press Institute. This new report, entitled Making the Leap Beyond 'Newspaper Companies,' includes:

• a broad new vision for what newspaper companies must become if they are to survive in today's heavily disrupted media landscape


• 31 case studies of both new products developed and organizational change accomplished using Newspaper Next principles and methods


• a look at the most promising areas for maximizing online revenue generation.

View the archived Feb. 19 Webcast here.

The biggest challenge facing virtually all newspaper companies right now is creating new revenue. Even among the most innovative companies -- those that are quickly diversifying their offerings and creating innovative new products and services for consumers -- the revenue performance often isn't as good as they hope.

That's why the Newspaper Next 2.0 report urges newspaper companies to redouble their focus on non-consumption among businesses, not just consumers. The revenue opportunities are huge, especially in two categories: small and medium enterprises that rarely advertise in newspapers, and larger businesses that have advertising objectives a newspaper can't meet very well. There's a lot of money in those two zones for newspaper companies that figure out how to meet these needs.

A new case study from NAA provides a great example of how to do it. Here, as so often before, the Bakersfield Californian is leading the way. You can download the excellent NAA report, written by Stacy Lynch.

As part of Newspaper Next 2.0, the American Press Institute worked with Borrell Associates to provide an overview of the most promising online revenue opportunities, along with tools and resources to help newspapers take maximum advantage of them.

Below are links to spreadsheets outlining current local online spending by business category in every designated market area (DMA), as well as Borrell's Future Tool to enable newspapers to calculate what their potential revenue opportunity could be in any size market.

Download the Data Overview here. This is your user's guide to the data offered below.

Download the Market Selector here.

Download online spending figures per DMA here.

Download the Online Spending Analysis here.

Download the Future Tool for Quintile 1 here.

Download the Future Tool for Quintile 2 here.

Download the Future Tool for Quintile 3 here.

Download the Future Tool for Quintile 4 here.

Download the Future Tool for Quintile 5 here.

Download the Web Audit for Quintile 1 here.

Download the Web Audit for Quintile 2 here.

Download the Web Audit for Quintile 3 here.

Download the Web Audit for Quintile 4 here.

Download the Web Audit for Quintile 5 here.

Newspaper Next's report and recommendations on how to restore growth in the newspaper industry were delivered to the newspaper industry in September 2006, capping a year of study and research. To receive a free copy of the full report in English, please click here.

Newspaper Next: Plan de Acción para la Transformación.

In addition, many newspapers and newspaper companies are booking on-site training workshops to get them started in implementing the N² approach in their organizations. To schedule a workshop for your organization or association, please contact Steve Buttry, API's director of tailored programs.

The Newspaper Next Training DVD is now available!

Interview form for consumers

Interview form for businesses

Interview form for employees

Download the Newspaper Next OASYS form here.

Download the Newspaper Next Idea Resume here.

Download the Newspaper Next Disruptive Innovation Barometer here.