Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1934-06-06
WHY A CIRCULATION CAMPAIGN?

In undertaking. q clrculdIl0n campaign OF county
wide scope, such as the Carbon County News launched
with its issue OF last week, a publisher is often asked
why it is necessary to exert such effort to increase his
subscription list! Is such a campaign advisable? Is it
wise? 1t it profitable?
In attempting to answer these questions, it is first
necessary to point out to subscribers just what they
buy when they pay for a newspaper. You buy informa-
ton concerning your friends at home and away from
home. You buy the record of public happenings IN your
town and county, so that you are kept in touch with
civic, county and regional records. You buy informa-
ton regarding the progress of the community and sur
rounding territory, so that you keep posted on the
| prosperity Of the section in which you live. Readers
learn from the advertising columns what is for sale
and at what price. The newspaper is the distribution
agent far and near for the industries and enterprises of
the community. You are building for a bigger, broader
and better future for yourself, your neighbors and
your community when you help promote the interests
OF your town and newspaper. In short, you are buying
progress, prosperity and population for your town
and territory.
Speaking of newspapers in general, they are the
spokesman for their respective communities, just as
their circulations permit.
Now circulation is the life Of a paper, just as blood is
the life of the body. There can be no substitute. The
Influence and power for good of the newspaper is abso-
lutely bounded by its circulation. The problem of get
ting and keeping circulation is one of the most perplex-
ing tasks in the newspaper business. Large forces of
highly trained men are employed by the metropolitan
dailies to keep their circulation lists built up to dimen-
sions expected and demanded by advertisers.
"Why should | subscribe for a paper just to help
some candidate win a prize?" is the question some
times asked. The purpose OF a campaign is not merely
to provide a LIST of prizes for workers to win, but to
broaden the scope of the paper. Every resident of a
city or county should be a paid-in-advance subscriber
to their home town paper. If they were the problem
would be solved. 1t would require no circulation cam
paign, no expert canvassers or premiums, nor any one
of the other methods used by newspapers to secure and
hold subscribers.
But, because a considerable number are not sub
%scribers, it is necessary to put forth extra efforts. 1t
would require many months of steady soliciting by a
corps of highly paid experts to accomplish the results
obtained by a campaign of this nature lasting only a
few weeks. That's part Of the "why'' of a circulation
building campaign but there's more.
In the last analysis, it is the business men that will
profit most by the increased list of readers the paper
will secure, Each additional hundred names added
means four or five hundred additional readers. These
new readers of the advertisements do not cost the adj
vertiser a penny. AS a cold blooded business PROPOSE
ton, all expenses of the campaign could p~rofitably be
borne by the advertisers, simply because of the in
creased number of people they will be able to talk to
in each issue of The News. When you, as a business
man buy space In a newspaper for an advertisement, it
is not the space you pay for but the number of readers
your message will reach.
From any standpoint it can be viewed-social, civil
or business-the circulation building campaign of the
Carbon County News should receive steadfast and
hearty support from the residents of Carbon county
and trade territory, and particularly from the business
men. They have it in their power to make the coverage
by regular readers of the paper a 100 per cent success.
By so doing, they will simply be assisting in the growth
of their community, in upbuilding its manifold inter-
ests and in promoting the growth of their own business.
The primary purpose Of this campaign is to enlarge
the usefulness of the Carbon County News and make it
even more valuable as a medium for the further pro-
motion Of the community's business and social we'll
being.
1t is also the belief of the management that this is a
time for business to undertake new enterprises. Moth
ing can be accomplished by idly waiting for the return
small, to undertake new ways and means of stimulat-
ing activity.
The task which we have undertaken is not our task
alone. Every man and woman, every boy and girl in
Carbon county and trade territory, may have a share in
it. We call upon all who have the interest of the COM
munity at heart to join with US in our forward pro-
| gram for
A United, Peaceful, Prosperous Carbon County!