Publisher’s Letter: Renewing your North Forty News Subscription

By Blaine Howerton, Publisher
North Forty News

Last week I wrote about how North Forty News aims to bring 1000 new subscribers to the newspaper by January. We made a little progress last week. Eight subscribed.

But since August 1, seven have not renewed. These numbers seem small, and they are! But every subscriber counts.

This week I would like to write about renewals.

Follow this chart every week! Let’s get rid of the red together! Give 5 newspapers from any one of our stands to friends, family, co-workers and ask them to subscribe.

When someone doesn’t renew, there are several factors to explain why. I’ve heard about changing economic circumstances, people moving, subscribers who are just not happy for some reason, and other things. Life happens. I will always work with someone who cannot afford a subscription, even though our least expensive subscriptions are only about six dollars a month.

The most common issue we run into regarding renewals is my inability to keep up. Yours truly is the circulation manager, the mail room, the accounting assistant, a salesperson, a delivery driver, and I write too. So, that leaves very little time for me to create more administrative duties for something as simple as printing out a renewal card and sending it in the mail. These are not excuses. They are just reality.

We take great care to ensure our subscribers know weekly how many issues they have left on their subscriptions. Just look at the bottom label under your address. I print and put a label on every subscriber’s newspaper every week.

And, if you provide your email address when you renew or subscribe, we do our best to send renewal notices through email once per month. We will also send expiration notices through email. By the way, we NEVER share your email address with third parties.

Another way our subscribers can track the delivery of their newspaper is by logging into your account. Our subscribers can do this from our website, or we can provide a custom link that gets into the subscriber’s personalized account. You can change your address, pause delivery, renew your subscription, see how many issues you have in your subscription, read the latest edition, send a gift subscription to someone, and more.

If this is too much information to handle, or you do not have Internet access, send us a note in the mail. Or, send a check for your renewal. Make sure you note your delivery address, how we can reach you if there’s a question, and how you would like to receive the newspaper.

Some people even come to our mailbox and drop off a check. Our mailbox is at a UPS store, and you can visit during typical business hours. Look at the masthead in the newspaper for our address, just below this article.

If we reach our goal of 1000 new subscribers by January, we will be able to send renewal notices regularly. I dream of that day!

More importantly, we will also be able to improve and expand our content. And that is something many people (myself included) are most excited about!


LOCAL NEWS IS A NECESSITY

ENGAGE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY!

Help us report on the new local reality.

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For our current subscribers, driveway delivery of North Forty News is now available within a reasonable distance to state highways and urban areas.

Current subscribers register at:

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