Public Notices Growth Project
Summary March 25, 2008
Taking over the Public Notices position was a three phase plan: Phase one involved fully mastering the position and the training involved. Ten months in the position have included two “rounds” of the required governmental display Budget Notices and Annual reports. Those have definitely been the busiest times and I was able to efficiently process the notices with a minimum of production errors. The first round did include several AR corrections, but only one AR correction was necessary with the second batch. Notices that are processed as line ads through the Falcon system are easily processed and generally there are few errors.
Phase two was to make the process more efficient if possible. The biggest step toward more efficiency has been simply having a full time employee dedicated to the position. It has decreased the “crunch” at the end of the month for billing purposes, because proofs are usually done daily and has also freed Sue and Leah to complete the other aspects of their positions more completely and less stressfully. The purchase of the scanner with OCR capability has decreased the need for typing in many cases. This also allows Joyce and Donna to fulfill other job duties. Another way I have made the process more efficient is by encouraging all new customers and many existing customers to place ads by email. The notices are more efficient to process and less prone to error. IU now places most of the Notices to Bidders over email and the County and City governments are beginning to place more ads electronically – it depends on department and individual in those cases.
Another step toward making the Public Notice processing more efficient was to make me a complete backup for Pam in Martinsville. This has not yet been completed. Leah has been too busy with other projects to complete my training. I have access to the Martinsville PBS and have understanding of part of the process, copies of the rates and good communication with Pam. I feel like if it came down to a pinch I could enter the notices, although some corrections to the rates or billing might have to be made. With the integrated billing system soon to be implemented I think we might as well wait until it is fully functional to complete this training. I process the copies of Proof of Publication for the Morgan county papers as well as the Herald-Times so that task has been removed from Leah.
Phase three of the transition to a full time Public Notices Employee was to find ways to grow revenue in the category. I did quite a bit of research online, with other newspapers and in some publications. I began by emailing ten newspapers that I felt were similar markets in size, or because they were a college town or a mixture or urban/ rural community etc. Questions Susan and I agreed I would ask were:
1) Are you experiencing gains or losses in this category?
2) Can you estimate what percentage of your revenue comes from government legal notices vs. others?
3) Do you aggressively pursue any of this business and if so, how?
4) Do you offer upsells such as bold headlines, attention getters, etc?
5) Are your Legal Notices run online? If so, do they run in your classified online section or do you sell them other online ad positions (i.e.: skyscrapers, leaderboards, etc)?
I also inquired as to how rates work and what they are. For example, does their paper use flat rates for certain types of notices or lines rates only.
Several papers did not respond to my inquiries at all or seemed hostile toward my questioning. Some responses provided useful information.
1) Are you experiencing gains or losses in this category? Every paper who answered this questioned is generally down. I was surprised that Leslie from Terre Haute mentioned specifically that Sheriff’s Sales notices are down. It seems with the current mortgage foreclosure scares and real estate problems they should be up. I also wonder if they have a system for tracking these specifically. As far as I know, we would not have a way to do that. I wonder if that would be helpful for us to do.
2) Can you estimate what percentage of your revenue comes from government legal notices vs. others? Those who answered estimate that 90% or more of their revenue come from governmental notices. I ran a report on all of our revenue from public notices in 2007. Total revenue was $xx,xxx.95. Only 28% ($xx,xxx.57) of that was from governmental notices. I believe the representatives from these papers misunderstood that the question asked specifically about revenue. It seems impossible for them to claim that much of their revenue comes from governmental notices at the extremely low governmental rates, when their private party rates are higher than ours. I feel like governmental notices take 90% of the work for 28% of the revenue!
3) Do you aggressively pursue any of this business and if so, how? A flat NO from everybody. Leslie from Terre Haute said, “We look at it as a line we cannot influence.”
4) Do you offer upsells such as bold headlines, attention getters, etc? One yes on bold as an upsell, one yes on a border as an upsell with a $5.00 rate, one paper charges $15.00 for each Publisher’s Affidavit for private parties, rather than including them in the rate, which surprised me.
5) Are your Public Notices run online? If so, do they run in your classified section online or do you sell them other online ad positions? Everybody runs them online – nobody sells special positions or anything like that.
Every paper who answered my question about rates charges more than we do for non-governmental public notices. We charge $1.00 per line per insertion. South Bend charges flat rates for some types, then $1.25 - $6.85 per line per insertion, depending on the day of the week, and even higher rates for notices coming from out of state. Elkhart also has flat rates for some types of ads, but did not disclose line rates. Terre Haute charges $2.87 per line. In Lafayette the Journal and Courier charges some flat rates then some line rates varying between 69 cents per line per day up to $1.43 per line PLUS $15.00 for each affidavit.
I also inquired of two newspapers in larger markets, the Indianapolis Star and the Chicago Tribune. Despite repeated attempts I never received a response from the Star.
The representative of the Tribune, however, was helpful and surprised me with a couple of her replies. Not surprisingly, like the smaller papers, the Tribune is also experiencing losses in this category, and does not really “pursue” business – with the exception that she mentioned they “bid” on government contracts – so state laws considering governmental notices must be different in Illinois. I was surprised to learn that the Tribune does charge an extra fee to place the notices online - $15.00. There are no special positions or other pricing available. The notices appear online only in the regular classifieds. Bolding is available for a percentage of the ad price – so it sounds like they bold the entire ad if it is purchased – the representative mentioned it is not a good seller. I can see why it would be a poor seller as many types of legal notices such as notices of suit or other court proceedings are regarded as what is referred to as “sewer service” by many. A law professor quoted in one New York Times article (Nov. 19, 2007), explained that often the person placing the ad really does not want the defendant to see the ad and act upon it, so the printed notification is comparable to the fraudulent practice of merely pretending to serve papers. The rates at the Tribune are a mix of flat rates and line rates, some also dependent on day of publication. All are much higher than ours, which makes sense because of the larger, metropolitan market and circulation.
One idea I pursued was to contact the Indiana State Bar Association about the possibility of obtaining a contact list of attorneys, especially those who handle class action suits. I received one reply questioning if I wanted to purchase “mailing labels” or needed a referral. Even though I indicated that I was interested in purchasing labels and followed up I never received another reply. I will inquire again, perhaps a written inquiry, rather than email will be more effective.
Another idea to increase revenue was to pursue having the Town of Ellettsville place all their required Public Notices with the Herald-Times rather than the Ellettsville Journal. I wrote an initial inquiry to the Town Clerk- Treasurer in December with a proposal. In the letter I demonstrated through circulation figures of both subscribers and single-copy sales that the Herald-Times is truly the primary paid newspaper of record in the Ellettsville area. I failed to follow up on my proposal with the holidays, my subsequent illnesses and then the Annual Township Report season immediately following. I will follow up on this now. My proposal is to watch a month of the Ellettsville Journal, see what notices the town runs and to see what a comparable cost would be for them to run in the Herald-Times. I propose we then schedule a meeting with town officials to woo them over. We can impress them with our efficiency and accuracy. Prices should actually be comparable, unless there is a huge difference in column size, because the rates will be the governmental rates. I would guess that after we woo them over the Town would not be able to implement the change until 2009 because of the political process necessary for appropriations and budgeting. I should probably begin tracking the notices in the Journal as soon as possible toward this.
One small change I have already implemented is the use of bold type for headers within many of the notices. Although there is no extra charge for the bold it occasionally makes the notices run an extra line which can add two or three dollars to the price of a notice. It also makes it easier for customers to find their notices when they search the paper. Most of the phone calls or email inquiries I get from customers who cannot find their notices are from those whose notices do not have a bold header.
Further ideas toward increasing revenue would be to set a flat rate for a couple of types of notices. I think likely candidates would be for name changes and Notice of Administration. Often these are placed by out of town Attorney offices or by individuals. They call to inquire how much they will be and cannot be told a set price until after they have filed and received their Cause number from the Clerk of Court, then send in the notice, it is entered in the system, etc. If these customers could be told a flat rate upon initial inquiry the office or individual could place the notice and pre-pay all at once, removing several steps and some waiting time in the processing. The new flat rates could be determined by averaging several of each type of notice and setting perhaps just a little bit higher, so we are sure to maintain at least current levels of revenue and perhaps increase.
We should create a new rate specifically for Sheriff’s Sales. Most of those ads are placed by large, out-of-town attorney’s offices and the costs are passed on as part of the debt of the sale. Those offices are used to paying the higher rates of the other papers and probably wouldn’t notice an increase in line rate by as much as 25 or 50%. We could keep the “local legal” line rate for truly local legal offices who mostly do Notice of Administration or Name Changes, unless we decide to set flat rates for those types of ads. We should increase our private Local Legal line rate for other notices. The Terre Haute Tribune-Star, which has similar daily circulation, charges nearly THREE TIMES ($2.87) the line rate that we do.
Action Items to be Completed
Indiana State Bar Association: Continue to pursue list of attorneys to contact for Class Action advertising.
Complete training Hope for Martinsville/ Mooresville backup once integrated billing system is implemented.
Continue to pursue Town of Ellettsville governmental notices by tracking – begin month of April? Can we get a subscription for me so I don’t have to scrounge from newsroom?
Decide new rate structure and implement as soon as possible.
In conclusion, it is worth paying me full-time to continue the improvement process, make Leah and Sue happier, and free them as well as Joyce and Donna to perform their other tasks more efficiently. As we raise rates and revenue increases exponentially, I should receive an initial bonus and then a large hourly raise.
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