Editorial: We’ll Show You Ours (Distribution Numbers) If They Show You Theirs

By Gary Nager

In recent issues we have run a 1/4-page advertisement that tells our readers (many of whom own businesses that want to get the most for their money in our only two distribution markets, New Tampa & Wesley Chapel) that “We’ll Show You Ours If They Show You Theirs.” Although the ad makes a light-hearted joke about it, we are deadly serious when it comes to distribution figures.

Because both of our publications are distributed by direct mail through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), we can’t “audit” our circulation figures through an independent agency (none of the accredited circulation auditors will audit direct-mail publications, and we don’t really need them to because, in order to receive the special Bulk Mail rate publications like ours receive, we have to give the Post Office enough copies to put one in at least 95 percent of every mailbox in every postal carrier route we serve or the Post Office will not deliver any of them!).

But, we think our postal receipts are an even better proof of how many households (not people; more on this below) receive our publications in their mailboxes (not thrown on their driveways in the rain) and therefore offer the most possible people in both zip code 33647 (New Tampa) and zips 33543, 33544 & 33545 (Wesley Chapel) the opportunity to read them.

As most of our readers in both markets already know (because you tell us so every day), when you have the best, most informative content of any local media outlet as well as the largest circulation, our advertisers can rest easy that there will be more eyeballs reading our words and checking out their ads than any other local medium.

And, the number of those eyeballs keeps on growing, especially in Wesley Chapel, where we have added more than 5,000 additional direct-mail households since the economic bubble hit in 2008, all at our own expense and without any significant rise in our advertising rates!

But, my primary reason for writing this piece today is to tell you that, thanks to input from readers in New Tampa (specifically living in one carrier route in Cross Creek and one in Heritage Isles) who suddenly didn’t receive one or both of our last two issues in their mailboxes, we have recently added two routes and more than 1,000 additional households in zip code 33647, bringing our all-direct-mail circulation to 26,200+ households in New Tampa.

With an average of just about three people living in every household in our area (yes, many have both more and less than three, but that is the average), that means we have nearly 80,000 potential readers in New Tampa (including one carrier route in Lake Forest, which is a Lutz address, but located along Bruce B. Downs Blvd., just south of Tampa Palms) alone! When you add the nearly 21,000 households (also unmatched in the marketplace) we direct mail to in our three Wesley Chapel zip codes, the total number of people who have ongoing direct-mail access to our publications is nearly 150,000 every four weeks (we publish 26 issues, 13 in New Tampa and 13 in Wesley Chapel, every year).

Here’s an explanation you can check with the Post Office as to why we felt we had to add two more carrier routes in New Tampa. Whenever new communities, like K-Bar Ranch, begin building in an already-established area, the Post Office will wait until there are enough households in that new development or subdivision before adding another route. That means the new households in those just-developing areas will simply be added to existing carrier routes located near that new neighborhood until there are enough households in the new community itself to warrant a new route.

All ongoing direct-mail businesses are required by the Post Office to get updated carrier route numbers, but only every 90 days (three months), so until we get our updated counts again, some of the households along those now-larger existing routes may not receive their Neighborhood News until we get our next route count update.

The Post Office has even been known to change existing routes to make it easier for the postal carriers to make sure everyone they serve receives all of their mail — and, as a federal government-funded entity, the USPS isn’t required to tell anyone about those changes (go figure).

Therefore, it’s up to you, faithful readers, to tell us if you suddenly aren’t receiving your Neighborhood News in your mailbox, so I’m always grateful when you do. I can (and I’m always happy to) prove exactly how many copies we print and distribute in each of our two markets, but I can assure you (because I always know how much we spend to mail our publications to you), that if any other local medium claims to have higher numbers of homes, apartments, businesses or readers in either market than we do, all you have to do is ask them to prove it and they’ll likely back off their claim.