A large part of the success of this promotion was how it struck a chord with all of the staff at the Evening Post. On a daily basis, we provide our readers with local news and entertainment and give them the chance to win a wide variety of prizes, but with this promotion we were truly able to give something tangible back to the people of Bristol. Our aim was to develop a connection with the readers and show them that we were willing to give something back, not only with a cash prize but also with our own time.
To achieve this, it was vital that there was an integration of newspaper sales activity and editorial support. We are very fortunate to have such a supportive editorial team, making this integration easy.
| Kevan Blackadder, assistant editor, writes: The Community Makeover scheme with the Barclays Community Investment Programme has proved an editorial success as well as a fantastic newspaper sales initiative. The Evening Post's slogan is "at the heart of all things local" and the editorial team is driven by a desire to support and promote our local communities. £18,000 Community Makeover was an ideal way of showing community groups and local organisations that not only were we there for them, but we could also give them direct support. Nominations always flood in from all parts of our circulation area and the scheme proves just how many decent people there are out there, giving up their own time to make their areas a better place to live. I can still remember the reaction of people at Hengrove Community Centre when they won our first award in 2006. They were desperately trying to give their area of Bristol a worthwhile meeting place but were continually suffering problems through the aging state of the building and vandalism. They were delighted to be able to radically improve the centre with the £10,000 and the centre’s caretaker and treasurer, Sandra Cragg, said at the time: "This is the first time we have ever won anything, and I am chuffed to bits. The makeover has been a great thing for the community. This centre brings the young and the old together. The money we received made so much difference. We would have had to close without it." A team from the Evening Post rolled up their sleeves and helped make sure the money was put to good use by decorating the kitchen and toilets, whilst local companies provided a new security system and repaired the roof. This promotion not only gives direct support to communities but shows them how the Evening Post is there to help in a meaningful way. |
Objective
As many newspaper sales departments are aware, it is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with fresh and new ideas to combat the yearly decline in sales. The aim of this promotion was not only to give back to the local community who are instrumental to our future but also to increase our sales figures.
From the newspaper point a view, we had very clear objectives including:
* To combat a seasonal decline in newspaper sales.
* To encourage readers to purchase on lower selling days.
* To extend purchase on lower selling days and to increase frequency of one / two day readers.
* To increase base sale.
* To develop a more exciting twist on the traditional token collect mechanic.
* To attract new readers via word of mouth by encouraging people to club together with their friends, family and colleagues in order to achieve the highest number of points.
Due to its success and impact within the Hengrove local community the previous year, it inspired us to make the promotion even bigger and better. We wanted to make sure that everyone in Bristol was aware that the chance to transform their community was back.
We teamed up with Barclays Community Investment Programme, who gave us £18,000 to help local people make the most of their area. We wanted to motivate everyone to help improve their own part of Bristol and to unite as a community.
Providing they had a registered charity number, we could help anyone, from a vandalised youth club, a Girl Guides or Cub Scouts Hall, a local park; or a dancing school desperately in need of jazzing up.
We had £12,000 to spend on the winning project with the money providing the labour and materials to do the place up. We also asked local companies within Bristol to get involved and save the winner more money.
In addition, we had £4,000 for the runner up and £2,000 for the third prize.
Our aim was simply to put something back into the local community and make as much of a difference to their local lives as possible.
Spreading the word
We used a wide variety of promotional materials in order to create as much awareness as possible.
We wanted to reach people who were not already regular readers of the paper, so several weeks before the promotion began we sent mailers with full details of the promotion to as many community based projects as we could think of including community centres, schools, councils. This had a great impact and we received some positive feedback from readers as it gave people within the community time to gather support.
The arts did a fantastic job on both the external point of sale and in-paper creative; the artwork was fun, bright and eye catching and maintained the community theme brilliantly.
We used our standard promotional material which we display in all retailers within the area, including A3 and A2 posters, till wobblers and header panels. Our reps also delivered posters to as many schools and community projects as possible well in advance of the promotion commencing.
We printed 25,000 news bills with the promotional artwork on the rear. These were distributed the week prior to the promotion and during the entry stage. Once the news bills were out, we had literally covered Bristol with the promotion.
The poster van was used to cover vital commuter routes, busy traffic junctions, local supermarkets, community centres, schools and shopping areas. We also sent it to targeted residential post code areas in order to raise as much awareness of the promotion as possible.
Details of the promotion were posted online. This was updated at every stage of the promotion; it explained how to enter, featured all twelve finalists and details regarding how to vote. We produced an online bonus token to help get people started and, of course, featured the winner at the end of the promotion.
We pre-promoted the competition a month before it commenced within our own title and, in order to cover as large an area as possible, within our sister titles and Metro. The frequency of pre-promotional ads intensified as the start of the promotion grew close.
Choosing the winner
Our aim was to make the entry method as simple and clear as possible. There were three simple steps to follow:
Step 1. We asked readers to look at their local community to see if there was any way we could help them make a difference to the quality of community life. Readers then chose the project they wanted us to makeover, completed an entry form and sent it in. Throughout this period, our editorial team ran features on the projects that were entering in order to raise awareness and encourage groups from all areas to participate. This made a huge difference as it illustrated the wide variety of projects that were entering and in turn encouraged even more entries to come flooding in.
Step 2. The Evening Post and Barclays Community Investment Programme representatives selected twelve finalists. We had over 120 entries to choose from.
Step 3. A double page feature announced the twelve finalists, featuring a picture and description of each. For the following two weeks we asked readers to vote for their favourite project by collecting tokens. We featured two projects on our promotional page per day and readers could see the full details online. During these two weeks, we printed a token in paper every day each with a different points value. We ran the tokens with the highest points value on our lowest selling days. In addition, we placed bonus tokens. We encouraged readers to get together with friends and neighbours in order to collect as many tokens as possible. The scheme that collected the highest number of tokens would be our 2007 winners. The two runners-up prizes were awarded to the next two highest submissions.
Success
Once again, the promotion proved to be a huge success. We received a total of 832,920 points (if you bought one paper a day for six days you would collect 300 points) which equates to 16,658 papers purchased in total. The winning project (the Headley Park Community Centre) collected 286,400 points which equates to 5,728 papers in total.
During the four weeks prior to the promotion, we were 5.1% down. In the five weeks of the promotion and follow up articles the deficit was 3.8%. This showed an improvement of 1.3% on the year-on-year comparison for the period of the promotion.
