Stand Alone Classified Section

[MediaSalesPro]

How important is it to have your classified section appear in the newspaper package as a stand alone section? Is it worth considering having classified done in a prerun to establish a free standing section? Please list some reasons how you can justify the extra costs and expenses associated with a free standing section. Should a standalone section be a top priority for a new classified manager? Your input is appreciated.

[Paul Keen]

Having just gone through the launch of a new press and the first major re-design of the newspaper after 22 years, I can say that it is very important for Classified to be established as a stand alone section if at all possible. It is rather unique in its ability to market itself convincingly with its own cover. With the help of a well designed index and creative front page features, a stand alone Classified should become a powerful draw to both advertisers and readers, with the end result being to effectively brand and market itself and create its own community and a loyal following. It can be expected that readers will come to take ownership of the section and think of it as theirs and not ours.

A stand alone Classified section gives us plenty of freedom to do key promotions anytime of the year, over as many days as we need, in all of our categories, especially Employment and Automotive, using the cover and consecutive pages for supporting content and related advertising. The payoff for all of this is revenue gain, from increased linage, upsell revenue or both. We have seen increases in transient and private party revenue since the change, and double-digit gains in upsell revenue. For a period of transition, we did pre-run the Classified section. Fortunately it did not pose major deadline issues for us. The ability to produce a stand alone section offset any inconvenience from tighter deadlines in some cases. While it would be difficult for Classified to shoulder the entire expense burden for adding a shift, a pre-run does open the door to a multiude of other sections, supplements and niche products, not to mention the potential for more flexibility in the main product, including such things as back page or other premium positions and more color availability for ROP advertisers and perhaps even Editorial.