| Published Letter Valuation Method | ||
|---|---|---|
Below is the explanation of the methods we used to calculate the "ad Value"
of our published letters and articles. There are obviously variables and
these are educated guesses but as accurate as we can be with a bias towards
the conservative:
We have conducted significant research and come to some basic conclusions: There are about 40 words per column inch in most newspapers and a column inch is sold by most newspapers at about $60 per 100,000 circulation. This seems to hold true regardless of how large or small a newspaper is and is based on studying rate sheets and ad costs nationwide. | ||
| For example: A paper with a circulation of 100,000 readers that would equate to a $1.50 per word value ($60 divided by 40 words in one column inch). We estimate that the average circulation of newspapers in which we have letters published is roughly 300,000. We base this on averaging the circulation of these papers over a 3 year period. We conclude that our average published letter or article is worth $4.50 per word (3 times $1.50). | ||
| We archive all of the published reform letters that we can find on our web pages. The average archived LTE contains 810 HTML characters (bytes) which don't count. (headings etc.) | ||
| Based on that, the "Letters to the Editor Value Clock" calculates the number of letters currently archived, calculates the number of total published words in the archive and multiplies that times the $4.50 word average and then provides us with a total estimated value of our published letters and articles, | ||
Archived Letters to the editor: 592 Average letter size: 198 words Total published words: 117,468 (592 times 198). We multiply this times the $4.50 per word value above and come up with an estimated value of our efforts of $528,606.00 This is more than $10 returned for every dollar invested in MAP (about $50,000 to date) or a very impressive 1,000+% return on investment. | ||
| We know this is a very conservative estimate because we only find and archive an unknown percentage (probably less than 50%) of our published letters. This value also _does not_ include hundreds of broadcast media appearances including radio talk shows and television appearances that have been arranged by the DrugSense Media Awareness Project (MAP) effort that would easily double the figure. | ||
| An additional consideration, albeit one that cannot be quantified, is the effect and media educational value of the thousands of unpublished letters that have been sent out nationwide since the MAP effort began. | ||
| We feel that the net effect of this ongoing and persistent media effort has already shown signs of producing ever increasing amounts of coverage on reform issues and perhaps even more important a significant improvement in the accuracy of media coverage nationwide. We expect this effect to increase as the DrugSense and MAP efforts grow and improve. | ||
Return to MAP published letters index |
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