Display Department: Changes 2009

– from Greg Foster, AWNA’s Marketing Representative

The dawn of 2009 seems appropriate timing to launch the newest chapter in AWNA Display. 2008 brought with it a number of challenges particularly on the staffing side which now seem to be in the past with the arrival of myself in mid October, and Display Ad Coordinator Katherine Seely and Display Advertising Administrator Janet McCubbing. Having a full team in place is a good first step toward returning to the efficiency and productivity AWNA members have come to expect from the Display Department. Additionally some new approaches to software support and database efficiencies have been developed in the last month to streamline the teamwork needed to manage the data we market on members’ behalf through its transition into revenue more safely and successfully to your bottom line both now and in the event of future staffing issues.

2009 promises to bring with it challenges of its own. A marketplace that is uncertain to say the least is the backdrop in which we plan for a new round of sales and promotional activities designed to leverage the tools and relationships Ad West has developed for our industry and apply them in new ways with new prospects. Lots more about that will follow in coming weeks, stay tuned.

There exists a current issue that is of vital importance to the success of all of our marketing and that is delivering customer service. It has become clear that one of the challenges the AWNA’s sales effort faces is getting ads booked and run in member papers. I reported earlier that several steps have been taken at the AWNA office in terms of personnel and software to make the ordering process as clean and accurate as possible. The other area of recurring issue is that with disturbing frequency, ads fail to appear in member papers. DNR stands for Did Not Run and at least one major client has sounded the alarm that besides lost revenue, the lost confidence from DNRs could potentially cost us future bookings. The solution will come in the form of a closer working partnership between the AWNA central office and member’s booking departments. From this end, we will begin immediately with the following change:

AD PLACEMENT PROCEDURE CHANGE.

Alert your booking people that effective immediately, the AWNA central office will begin sending your run lists on your booking deadline. Further, these run lists are to be checked over and signed off by the appropriate person in each member office thus completing the hand off and delivering a new level of confidence to our clients.

Insertion orders will continue to flow in as they are received however rather than processing all members’ run lists at one time regardless of your individual deadlines, we will now tailor their arrival to your timing thus reducing or eliminating changes on them thanks to late ads or cancellations.

Further processes are being developed here which promise to provide a more secure means of transmitting insertion orders to you and those will be announced when they are ready.

Future instalments in this space will include reports of sales and marketing activities, including those of the past couple of months. In the meantime, we all wish you a prosperous new year.