Circulation Sales Manager Newspaper Jobs (NOW HIRING)

The Circulation Sales & Distribution Representative is a sales-first position responsible for growing paid readership and circulation revenue across individual memberships, business and lobby subscriptions, retail single-copy accounts, events, and other community-based sales channels. The role is responsible for the day-to-day performance and fulfillment of the single-copy channel, including dealer relationships, draw management, returns, placement, and distribution coordination.

This employee is expected to be active in the market: prospecting, making sales calls, developing business relationships, attending community and trade events, testing new sales opportunities, and converting prospects into paid memberships. Single-copy fulfillment supports the sales mission; it does not define the position.

Requirements

Circulation Sales & Business Development

• Actively prospect for new individual memberships and paid circulation opportunities throughout the market.
• Make outbound sales calls, in-person visits, and follow-up contacts with local businesses and prospective customers.
• Develop business and lobby subscription accounts for offices, medical practices, hotels, restaurants, waiting rooms, professional offices, senior communities, dealerships, and other appropriate locations.
• Identify opportunities for businesses to purchase multiple subscriptions for customers, employees, guests, or community use.
• Develop relationships with employers and organizations that may offer newspaper memberships as an employee, member, customer, or community benefit.
• Attend trade shows, community events, expos, festivals, and other high-traffic events to sell individual memberships.
• Identify and pursue temporary membership-sales opportunities such as retail tables, kiosks, pop-up locations, and Costco-style membership sales events where appropriate.
• Coordinate subscription sales at community events and other high-traffic locations.
• Develop partnerships with local businesses that create opportunities to promote or sell memberships to their customers or employees.
• Follow up on leads generated through company marketing campaigns, promotions, events, referrals, and community outreach.
• Maintain an active sales pipeline and consistent follow-up cadence from prospecting through close.
• Track sales activity, new accounts, memberships sold, revenue generated, conversion performance, and other assigned sales metrics.
• Work with circulation leadership on offers, promotions, pricing initiatives, and campaigns designed to grow paid readership.
• Continuously identify new audiences, geographic areas, businesses, events, and partnerships that can generate circulation growth.

Retail Single-Copy Sales & Account Development

• Manage relationships with retail single-copy dealers and locations.
• Identify, prospect, and open new single-copy sales locations.
• Improve newspaper visibility and placement within existing retail locations.
• Identify high-performing and underperforming locations and take action to improve account performance.
• Monitor sales and returns by location and adjust draw quantities based on actual sales performance.
• Reduce unnecessary returns, product waste, and avoidable distribution expense.
• Identify opportunities to increase sales at existing dealer locations.
• Work with retailers on placement, promotions, special editions, and other opportunities to increase newspaper sales.
• Monitor single-copy revenue and provide recurring performance reporting to circulation leadership.

Single-Copy Fulfillment & Administration

• Coordinate newspaper quantities and deliveries to single-copy outlets.
• Maintain accurate dealer, location, draw, sales, and return records.
• Coordinate billing, credits, returns, and account information with the business office as appropriate.
• Support special publications and high-demand editions requiring expanded or adjusted distribution.
• Ensure new retail accounts and sales locations are properly established and serviced.
• Work with circulation operations to resolve fulfillment, delivery, or service issues that could negatively affect sales or customer relationships.

Revenue & Performance Accountability

• New individual memberships sold and associated revenue.
• New business and lobby subscription accounts.
• New multi-copy business accounts and institutional opportunities.
• Event, trade-show, pop-up, and field-sales results.
• Prospecting activity, qualified pipeline, follow-up activity, and conversion rate.
• New retail single-copy locations established.
• Growth of existing single-copy accounts and channel revenue.
• Single-copy returns, unsold-copy percentage, and waste reduction.
• Retention and service quality of business and retail accounts.

Sales Incentive Program

This position is eligible to participate in company-established sales incentive programs tied to circulation growth and other defined performance objectives. Specific incentive formulas, targets, eligibility requirements, and payout schedules will be maintained separately from this job description and may be revised by the company as business needs change.

Incentive opportunities may include performance related to new individual memberships, business/lobby subscriptions, multi-copy accounts, new single-copy locations, event-generated memberships, and special circulation growth campaigns.

Core Competencies

• Sales-oriented mindset with comfort initiating conversations and asking for the sale.
• Strong relationship-building and customer-service skills.
• Self-motivation, follow-through, and personal accountability for results.
• Ability to organize prospects, accounts, routes, events, and follow-up activity.
• Comfort working independently in the community while maintaining regular communication with leadership.
• Ability to review sales and return data and make practical decisions based on performance.
• Professional written and verbal communication.
• Flexibility to support events, special editions, and changing circulation priorities.

Qualifications

• Previous sales, account management, retail, customer service, circulation, or business-development experience preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships and follow through on sales opportunities.
• Basic proficiency with email, spreadsheets, customer/account systems, and sales tracking tools.
• Valid driver license, reliable transportation, and ability to travel locally for sales calls, dealer visits, and events.
• Ability to work occasional evenings or weekends for trade shows, community events, or special sales opportunities as required.

Physical & Work Requirements

• Ability to move throughout retail, business, event, and office environments.
• Ability to transport sales materials, newspapers, displays, or event supplies as required for the role.
• Ability to perform local driving and frequent in-person customer visits.

Role Philosophy

The expectation for this role is proactive market development. The Circulation Sales & Distribution Representative should regularly be in the community finding customers, developing relationships, making sales calls, attending events, testing new sales channels, and creating opportunities to grow paid circulation. Accurate single-copy fulfillment remains essential, but it is a supporting responsibility to the role's primary mission of audience and revenue growth.