Turn the tide: Ideas to bolster circulation

Chip Hutcheson

Oct 1, 2025

Maintaining circulation — let alone growing it — is so incredibly difficult in 2025. And if there’s a silver bullet to remedy the ever-growing difficulty of keeping readers, it sure is a well-kept secret.

That doesn’t mean give up that fight. But it is time to face the reality that most papers have seen circulation numbers slip in recent years. And it is time for each newspaper owner/publisher to try to turn the tide, even if it means rethinking their particular market and adapting to make their newspaper be considered an essential purchase.

The obstacles are well documented.

• Postal costs have surged in recent years — so much that newspapers cannot bear that burden and must raise subscription prices.

• While the cost to mail has increased, service has been on a downward spiral. I receive several newspapers in the mail from outside my county, and delivery is sporadic, at best. Many papers hear from subscribers that they often will receive two or three issues on the same day. I fielded one call recently from a newspaper that asked if I was receiving my copy. I replied that I was but was told that another subscriber in my ZIP Code had not received his paper in months. His subscription was up to date and the address was correct, yet there was no reason or solution provided by USPS.

• There’s an adage that says “the more racks/outside vendor locations you have, the more papers you will sell.” That’s correct. Any time we lost a convenience store or grocery where we sold papers, we didn’t make it up at other locations. I never understood why. That’s why losing one location made finding at least another one a priority.

Yet in many communities today, a person will have a difficult time finding outlets that sell the local newspaper. It was great when any of those outlets would have the newspaper prominently displayed near a checkout lane, but that is rare in today’s world. If you have such opportunities in your community, consider yourself fortunate and make sure to express your appreciation not only to the owner/manager, but to the clerks at the checkouts.

At one particular grocery store, we printed cards that included a subscription offer and asked clerks to put those into customer bags. Each card had the name of the clerk, and whenever we got a subscription offer, we looked to see which clerk was responsible. Then we made sure to give them a reward for their efforts.

I have heard many reasons for the demise of single–copy outlets. Some stores blame it on the newspaper for not picking up returns on a timely basis, allowing papers to stack up and become an eyesore. Others just didn’t see the financial reward for handling newspapers. Maintaining racks became a hassle for many newspapers, so that’s why they have been abandoned.

Enough said about the obstacles. Let’s look at some possible helps to bolster your circulation.

• One is obvious — have a comprehensive digital plan. That means updating your website every day, hopefully several times a day. Have an e-edition where readers can view every page of the paper. Have a paywall in place where reading any story or any e-edition requires payment. Some use a metered approach, providing a few stories free to start with — in hopes visitors to the site will be enticed to purchase a digital subscription.

Never lost sight of the fact that the newspaper’s website must be timely. Stories might break after the newspaper is printed. Don’t hesitate to display those on the website because it will help people realize the value of having a subscription so they can read the latest news.

Also, if you direct readers in the print edition to look for a specific story on the website, make sure you post that story promptly. For Friday night high school football games, try to have the story and photos posted that night.

• Promote the newspaper on social media. Use Facebook and Instagram to feature a prominent story, and direct people to your website where the person will have to pay to read the story. Yes, people will gripe about it, but it’s vital to financial viability.

A FEW EASY “TRIED AND TRUE” PRACTICES 

√ Include a subscription offer in every printed paper, especially promoting the digital option.

√ Periodically sample your community with a saturation issue. The advertising in that product will more than offset the mail cost. Make sure that issue is chock–full of local stories. Work well in advance on content. Make use of photos, especially ones that involve children and students, and be sure to name them in the photos.

√ Have a presence in schools and civic clubs — have someone one staff available to speak to various groups. The more connections you can make with your community, the more readers you can expect to gain.

√ Recruit businesses that will pay for newspapers to be delivered to nursing homes or school classrooms. It’s an ideal way to get revenue from non-traditional advertisers, such as a local industry. If you have a good relationship with your city or county government, consider asking the decision maker to include funds to pay for newspapers in the classroom.

√ Consider this new approach — take a tip from nonprofit sites, which are bold in asking people to contribute money so the site can be sustained. People don’t realize the value of a local newspaper until that paper is out of business. Schedule a “giving campaign” and use that campaign to highlight on social media how important the newspaper is to the community.

• Rethink your content. It is so easy to get comfortable with doing things the same way all the time. Ask people in your community what you can do that would make them more inclined to buy the paper.

A few suggestions on that front …

√ As mentioned in the past, a locally written column will generate great interest. It can be lighthearted. It was amazing the stories people would tell me about their friends and relatives that made great column fodder. It got to the point that friends would be chatting when I approached them and they’d change the conversation, saying that what they were talking about I would put in my column!

I wrote a local column every Wednesday for 41 years, but an added bonus for our paper were columns written by our Lifestyles editor, as well as two reporters who were the age of my adult children. They had a perspective on the community that people found interesting, plus their writing appealed to a younger demographic.

√ One of our most popular features was a weekly “gourmet corner,” featuring a local resident, a brief bio and the person’s favorite recipes. Contact local clubs to ask for volunteers for that feature. It’s quick and easy and can be quite a hit.

√ Local sports. Be heavy on the photos. Parents love to see their kids pictured in the paper.

√ School coverage. While privacy matters can complicate this, make friends of local school administrators and ask them to keep you in the loop on what is going on in schools. Special days when students dress up in different attire makes for great photo-ops.

√ Obituaries. I dread bringing this up because it is a lightning rod for strong opinions. It seems that the majority of papers today charge for obituaries, which in many cases result in only a scant death notice — five or six lines that just names the deceased, age and when the funeral will be.

I fear that much of the history of our communities suffers when more detailed obituaries have become obsolete. It also speaks to the credibility of the paper when a person who has been a key figure in the community dies and there’s little mention of it in the paper.

Don’t misunderstand my plea — you don’t have to run a lengthy obit free, but find a way to include more details on that person’s life. Tell how that person was involved in the community — and don’t charge for it. If a family wants to run an obit as submitted, which might include the name of pets or how “loving and kind” the person was, then charge for that.

I understand this can make a small dent in revenue, but that can be offset by making the paper a “must buy” in the home. My suggestion is to ask local funeral homes to support this change in policy by running an ad in every issue. Churches, insurance agencies and banking institutions can also be solicited for that page, bringing in dollars you might not otherwise get.

√ Don’t forget the history in your community. Go back into archives and find what was happening in your community 10, 20 and 50 years ago. Copy the headline and perhaps a sentence from those stories. On occasion, reprint a front page from a decade or two ago when a significant event occurred in your community. Be sure to post on social media that the page can be viewed in that week’s issue.

√ Identify what makes your community unique — then focus attention on content that contributes and celebrates that uniqueness.

Abraham Lincoln said he likes “to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I live to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” That principle can also be adapted to the local newspaper. Be proud of the public you serve, and operate your newspaper so that the community is proud of the newspaper.

Chip Hutcheson is the retired publisher of The Times Leader in Princeton, Kentucky. He was NNA president in 2015. He currently serves as a content strategist for Kentucky Today, the online news website of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Email him at chiphutcheson@yahoo.com