A boss of mine from years back would often say, “Figures lie, and liars figure” when others would present data to him. His words stuck with me through the years, as I don’t think he was alone in his mistrust of numbers, especially in today’s barrage of information from so many unreliable sources. Meanwhile, saying something is one thing. Proving it is quite another.
Our business philosophy is simple: We need to reach a continually growing number of readers so we can provide the best advertising results for our customers. We do this by publishing relevant news and information about local people, places and events.
I just pulled our numbers to see how we are doing. The total number of monthly readers we now have from all our efforts is 14,257. Do the figures lie? No, but some explanation is necessary.
Of our 14,257 monthly readers, 9,005 of them (63%) are from our print publications — Lake Panorama Times, Panora Times and Guthrie Center Times. Those 9,005 readers are estimated based on our total distribution of 7,277 with a 96.8% household receivership, a 79.9% household readership, and a pass-along of 1.6 readers per copy.
Of our 14,257 monthly readers, our websites have a total of 3,173 unique visitors per month (22%) with 2,020 of those from gctimesnews.com.
Of our 14,257 monthly readers, our Facebook followers now total 1,123 (8%).
Of our 14,257 monthly readers, we now have 956 email and text subscribers (7%) to our Times Vedette digital editions. We look forward to cracking 1,000 soon.
With our reader count more than the population of the county, one might question how this is possible. To be fair, there is certainly some duplication in these numbers, as many folks gather news and information from our multiple sources. Some of our readers are also from outside the area. And, although they are as accurate as Google Analytics can offer, one must question the validity of digital numbers, as the misinformation in that industry is rampant.
As you can see, our print publications continue to be the primary way that people read what we do, and the other efforts are great ways to complement that.
Can we do better? Absolutely, and we will. Meanwhile, I appreciate your support of our efforts, and I look forward to continuing to serve you.
Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@dmcityview.com
641-755-2115