Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Why we're practically giving away the Kuna Melba News

Yes, we’ve gone crazy.
Next month, we’re doing something that many people think we’re crazy for trying. We are selling one-year subscriptions to the Kuna Melba News for $10.
It drives me crazy when someone calls me and says they didn’t know anything about a supplemental levy election that was on the front page of the Kuna Melba News more than a half-dozen times.
It drives me crazy when someone calls to ask me when Kuna Days is when the full schedule is in that week’s issue. It drives me crazy when a city council member says she didn’t know anything about something that was in the paper the past week.
It drives me crazy when people say they had no idea that Kuna Lumber sells hardware. It drives me crazy when a school board member “finds out” about something three weeks after it was in the Kuna Melba News.
You get the idea. It’s a whole lot of crazy stored up.
No more excuses. Ten bucks. That’s it. One year. Fifty-two issues. Delivered to your mailbox every week. Ten dollars. For the whole year.
Whenever we tell someone we’re doing this, they look at us like we’re crazy. Many people recognize that the $28 per year subscription rate is already ridiculously low. And based on the subscription rates of every other weekly paper we’ve seen, it is the lowest rate we know of.
But, apparently, that’s not enough for some people. So we are going to make it as easy as we can.
We’ve actually thought of doing something as radical as going free, but our calculations determined that our ad rates would have to be so high that it would be too much of a financial burden on our advertisers and they wouldn’t be able to afford to advertise in a product that is distributed for free to every household in the school district.
So in reality, $10 is kind of a compromise. We’re not proposing any sort of raise to our advertiser rates, but we’re hoping the advertisers will greatly benefit.
Of course, one of the biggest reasons we want more subscribers is to make sure everyone in the community is informed about what’s going on. We feel passionately that every resident in this area should be reading the Kuna Melba News every week so that they are informed about what’s happening in their community, when soccer signups are, whether their pressurized irrigation bill is going up, whether a taxi business is causing a problem in a residential neighborhood. Our mission is to be the number one source of news and information about Kuna and Melba that you can’t find anywhere else.
But we’re also making this push on behalf of our advertisers. We want more readers to see their ads and make buying decisions based on the ads they see in the Kuna Melba News.
If you are a current subscriber: Thank you, thank you, thank you. We value your loyalty and appreciate your business. So many of our subscribers tell us every day how much they appreciate the paper and can’t wait to get it in the mail every Thursday. Don’t worry, we’re going to take care of you, too. Look for details coming soon about our customer appreciation special, in which we’ll give current subscribers a special deal when they renew.
In the meantime, if you’re a subscriber, please tell your friends and neighbors and let them know about the $10 special.

1 comment:

slfisher said...

It drives me crazy that I just spent $28 on a subscription and now you're selling them for $10. :)

but it's ok.