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What's New: Entertainment We'd like to take a moment to spotlight our newest revenue generating locator map program: The Entertainment and Dining Guide Reenergize your listings for restaurants, live music, movie listings, art openings and more, while creating excitement for your readers and new advertising opportunities for your advertisers. Our high interest print and online maps drive readers to your advertisers' locations. And, with enhanced online listings featuring advertisers' menus, wine lists, show schedules, coupons, and much more, your paper will be the first stop on the road to the best happenings in town each week! Partnerships and Developments Classified Concepts is proud to announce its new partnership with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG). LANG will be implementing the Classified Concepts Open House Online Locator on their real estate Web site, www.SoCalHomesite.com, which serves all of its nine daily papers: The Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, San Bernardino Sun, Torrance Daily Breeze, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Redlands Daily Facts and Whittier Daily News. The Web site will showcase in-depth real estate information for homes for sale in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, Orange and Riverside Counties. How Results = Revenue Right now, rental advertising is the one bright spot in the real estate advertising environment. And, the Classified Concepts' Rental Program is a great way to highlight this often-neglected category. The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, FL is a "success story" example. In October of 2006, the Times-Union launched "The Apartment Paper," a stand-alone rentals guide which utilized the Classified Concepts Rental map and locator as its focal point — both in print and online. As a result, the Times-Union increased its rental advertising volume and realized a 40% increase in rentals' revenue. The Times-Union Rentals Locator Program is now an integral part of its long-term growth strategy because it continually helps the publication build and maintain relationships with its valued rental advertising clients. "Overall, we are very happy with the program," says Butch Peiker, the Times-Union's Real Estate and Automotive Advertising director. " It has increased our rentals revenue, and, the production process and all of the technical aspects have been a breeze. Classified Concepts is a wonderful company to do business with. We have plans to expand to its other programs as well." Industry News NUMBER OF ONLINE NEWSPAPER VIEWERS REACH RECORD HIGHS IN 2007 (Source, NAA.org, February 2008) According to a recent NAA study, the average monthly unique audience figures for newspaper Web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007, a record year for the industry and an increase of more than six percent over 2006. Monthly unique visitors to newspaper Web sites averaged 62.8 million in last year's fourth quarter, a record number in itself and the largest in any quarter since NAA began tracking online usage in January 2004. This represents a nine percent increase over the same period a year ago. "Newspapers continue to successfully transform themselves into multimedia companies, offering unparalleled content that reaches a growing audience," said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. "Newspapers' expanding print and digital portfolios offer value to advertisers by providing a targeted, comprehensive menu of choices for today's discriminating consumer. As our industry's transition accelerates, it is clear consumers recognize newspapers as their trusted source of information in an increasingly digital environment." Sarah Sinclair, Client Services Manager: From My Office to Yours One of the things that I loved most about my job as the Classified Advertising Manager of a daily newspaper was all the fun we had. We worked hard, but we played hard, too. We wore costumes, decorated our hallways and cubicles, and we had contests galore! We invented the Classified "WAY COOL" awards, and celebrated every month with fun speeches and food and prizes. Going to conferences and networking with my fellow CAMS, I learned that it wasn't just here in Santa Barbara that the classified department had so much fun. It appeared to be a universal classified phenomenon. Are you struggling to keep things fun in this newspaper climate? Well, one idea that lends itself well is garage sales -- launching or re-launching your garage sale program with the Classified Concepts Garage Sale Locator Map program after a long cold winter is a great opportunity for fun. Have a contest for readers around garage sales: get a sponsor, pick a theme, highlight a "garage sale of the weekend" on the map — choose the ad with the wackiest, most fun copy. Encourage readers to visit all of the garage sales on the map looking for a certain clue. Give a prize to the first person that finds the clue or solves the puzzle. Give coupons for free ads to everyone who enters the contest! Or have a contest for your staff around garage sales: a free pizza coupon for the rep who takes the most garage sale map ads or the rep who helps write the funniest garage sale ad, or pizza for everyone on super garage sale map launch Friday. Yep, I have a few ideas. Some of them involve costumes, posters, contests and songs...and I'm happy to share them. But I probably don't need to. You're Classified Managers, after all...and you know how to have a good time! |
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