Former Rocky Mountain News president, publisher, and editor John Temple — now blogging from the perspective of a newspaper executive freed of operating within the risk-averse culture of newspapers — is putting out a series of 10 recommendations to the newspaper industry. There are some good ideas in his list so far, though at this writing he’s only up to No. 4.

Tip No. 4 is a good one: “Make the classifieds a separate, standalone business.”

He writes:

“Instead of trying to beat Craigslist from within a newspaper operation, free the people running classifieds to do what’s best for that business or hire new people to take the business in a different direction. … Give the new company the existing revenue stream and technological base and the authority to set their own course. If they want to buy pages in the newspaper for print ads, fine. If not, fine. Remove any contribution from classifieds from the newspaper’s budget.”

This would, of course, mean realigning and resizing the existing newspaper operation such that it can operate without classifieds income. But as Temple sees it, the new classifieds company can be created with the “mission of connecting buyers and sellers,” and thus become profitable because it has been freed, where it could not before.

As for the effect of freeing classifieds from the rest of the newspaper, Temple suggests:

“It will make it clear to everybody left at the newspaper that they have to find new sources of revenue, that they can’t live on the hope that what once worked will come back and save them.”

That sounds like harsh medicine. Just what the newspaper industry needs.

Don’t like the taste of that? You may end up in the same position as Temple: former leader of a once-proud newspaper that wasn’t able to make all the brave moves necessary for survival. (The Rocky Mountain News ceased publishing on February 27, 2009.)

Craigsphone iPhone app   Classifieds Pro place-ad feature on iPhone

The growth in “smartphones,” led by Apple’s two (soon to be three) generations of its iPhone, is nothing short of phenomenal. Apple has sold more than 21 million iPhones since the debut of version 1 (plus another 16 million iTouch devices, which can run most of the same applications as the iPhone).

According to Gartner Research, 269 million mobile devices were sold in 1Q09, and 13.5% were smartphones. That percentage should rise sharply in the coming months as more phones using Google’s Android operating system hit the market; Palm’s Pre smartphone goes on sale; and Blackberry’s Storm touchscreen smartphone gains market share.

In another year (and certainly two), we should see people mostly carrying smartphones as older phones without the ability to use external applications disappear.

That’s great news for classifieds. Think about it: What better device could you have to either place a classified ad, or search classifieds to find what you’re looking to buy. Specifically:

• The mobile phone is an ideal instrument for placing an ad (assuming the venue being posted to is ready to accept it that way). Selling your car? Use the phone to snap a photo or photos; fill out a form on a mobile classifieds application with text information; and post the ad, even using the phone to pay by credit card or Paypal if there’s a fee or if you want to purchase an upsell feature (such as preferred placement). Are you a Realtor with some new listings to add to some classifieds sites you use? Do them all in a morning with just your cell phone, perhaps even recording video tours of the homes with your phone and placing the ad listings without having to return to the home office.
• The advantages of using a mobile phone to search or browse classifieds are many:
  • Search while you’re on the go: Who has the model car you’re seeking?; where are the nearby garage sales going on right now?; which houses in our price range can we drive by, and which ones have open houses right now?
  • See photos or video from the advertisers.
  • Have the smartphone not only find, say, a garage sale carrying kids clothes, but create an instant map with directions from your current location.
  • Search across multiple classifieds sites using a smartphone app that covers multiple websites.

We’re at the early stages of the mobile applications revolution, but already a number of classifieds-related apps are appearing. For the iPhone, the Apple iTunes Store has nearly 30 apps — some free, some with download prices ranging from 99 cents to $4.99 — that can let you search Craigslist, for example. Some of them, like Craigster, also allow you to upload an ad to a Craigslist city site in some categories.

Some apps support searching across multiple classifieds websites. Epage Inc.’s Classifieds Pro iPhone app ($2.99), for example, supports searching and posting ads to such services as Live Deal, Craigslist, Oodle, Shopzilla, eBay, and its own iClassifieds and EPage services.

If you publish classifieds, you’ll want them to be included in some of these apps. Classifieds Pro, for example, plans to add new venues to search for and post ads, including from newspaper websites. It’s extra exposure for your advertisers, so keep an eye on the most popular phone apps and have them add your classifieds.

If you’re a local classifieds publisher and carry garage sales, you also will want to be included on some new garage-sale phone apps. Garage Sale App (that’s the name) aims “to use the iPhone to create a nationwide garage sale forum.” Its mission: “This app is basically the Craigslist for garage sales.” The small company behind Garage Sale App is a developer of mobile apps.

Other garage-sale mobile apps are coming. GarageSaleTracker.com, for example, is a website only right now, but is in the process of talking to iPhone app developers and should have a mobile app before too long, according to one of its founders. The company also hopes to work with newspapers to carry their garage-sale ads.

As a classifieds publisher, you should have your own mobile-phone app. Check out some of the early apps now available to get ideas. Some of the companies that developed the current apps are developers and can build one for you, or perhaps customize an existing app for your brand or market.

If you thought it was just the web that’s been killing off printed classifieds, you’re wrong. While web search is great, mobile has the added value of GPS location features that can find what you’re looking for, direct you to it with a map and directions, and even let you call or e-mail the seller all from the same portable device that’s nearly always by your side.

I hope you’re working on developing a mobile-specific app for your classifieds business. Increasingly, we’ll see classified ad users relying on their mobile phones because of the convenience of doing their searching, buying, and selling untethered.

Before too long, a classifieds publisher without a mobile app will be left behind as the rest of the industry moves onward to the next business-model-changing application of technology.

What classifieds mobile apps are you working on, or have already released? Please share in the comments!

Yes, this site has been quiet in recent weeks as we’ve been busy with other things. But we’re still here and we’ll be publishing more great information, news, and advice about the future of classifieds soon — beginning with a post on mobile classifieds apps coming up as soon as I can hit the Publish button.

Media designer Alan Jacobson is not always a fan of the ideas presented on this website (he expressed his disdain for the idea in our Classifieds Manifesto, for example, for newspapers to actually start selling things like cars, in addition to just publishing ads), but he does agree that if newspaper publishers would just break out of their old way of thinking, it is possible to regain ground with classifieds.

Alan Jacobson

On RevenueTwoPointZero.com, Jacobson this week urged newspapers to “Build a Better Craigslist.” Says the design consultant who’s worked on some classifieds redesigns himself, “Ironically, CraigsList isn’t particularly well-designed or easy to use. It’s merely easier than the alternatives that newspapers have offered.”

He advocates not only designing a more attractive, easier-to-use, and feature-full CraigsList — and keep it free — but we must also incorporate a sustainable revenue model, such as running paid contextual display ads alongside free classified ads.

Here’s a rundown of his core (and quite simple, really) ideas:

“Here’s how to build a better Craigslist:
1. Make it easier to use
2. Make it free for the general public
3. Serve up context-sensitive, paid ads along with free classified ads
4. Provide a forum for feedback on sellers to keep ‘em honest.”

Between Jacobson’s reasonable advice, and some of the ideas and models floated elsewhere on ReinventingClassifieds.com (some of which you, like Jacobson, may think are too far out), why is there still so little classifieds innovation at newspapers?

Have you given up? If you are doing some of this stuff at your newspaper, I’d like to know about it. E-mail me. If you’re not experimenting like crazy with classifieds right now, tell me why not. Because, frankly, I don’t get it.

Attention! Classifieds are dead! Long live classifieds 2.0!!

Christopher Ryan and I have channeled our frustration as well as our optimism, and some concrete solutions, into the Classifieds Manifesto, an 11-point document that explains how newspapers can take the downward-sloping revenue line that represents their classifieds business, and turn it upward again.

We don’t believe that it’s too late for newspapers to rebuild a substantial classifieds business, in print, online, and on mobile devices. But it will take some revolutionary thinking, and action.

We not-so-humbly offer this Newspaper Classifieds Manifesto: READ ON…

In our recent contest for best idea for reinventing classifieds, student edition, winner Will Sommer suggested that the dullness of newspaper classifieds is part of the problem. Make them fun, he suggested, and newspapers might have a chance of fighting back against Craigslist and the other forces lined up against them.

The other day I ran across what I think is a terrifically creative online ad campaign produced by a company wanting to rent out some office space. Using the named “Summit Chair” they used YouTube to post a funny video ad, and photo-sharing service Flickr to post a bunch of pictures of the space and the neighborhood amenities, and a presence on Facebook.

Here’s the video, starring a “talking” chair left behind by the previous tenants:

Keeping with the animated chair humor theme, photos of the office and nearby neighborhood amenities are posted on Flickr, again with the empty chair giving you the photo tour. And you can become a “friend” of “Summit Chair” on Facebook.

What these folks did to lease some office space, of course, was use a video camera, a still camera, several social networks, and some creativity. Here are a few ideas that this brings to mind for a newspaper classifieds operation struggling to survive:

• Classifieds can be fun (as Sommers suggested in his winning contest entry). Encourage your customers to compete for best ad and give away a prize to the winner. (The prize could be a featured spot on the homepage and/or a promotion in the print edition pointing people to the online ad.) Make ads into “content” that people want to see; the funniest-ad entries can be marketed in the way you’d promote a great editorial piece.
• Utilize video and support your advertisers in producing inexpensive video to sell a car, rent an apartment, etc. Newspaper classifieds websites should of course accommodate video, and the simplest thing for most people will be to post it to YouTube and pick up the “embed code” to include it on the newspaper site. These are classified ads, so don’t worry about quality. Some folks will shoot a video to sell their car using a cell phone. That’s fine. (Do check YouTube’s advertising policies to be sure you’re operating within its terms of service.
• Hire a videographer/producer exclusively for a video ad production department. A small business like the company renting the office space above may not have enough creativity on staff to produce the video ad above, so they can come to the newspaper ad department if they’re willing to put some money into it.
• Help these types of advertisers utilize social networks. Many small businesses don’t have the savvy to know that posting their video on YouTube is a good idea, or that they can post a gallery of photos on Flickr for free, etc. The newspaper classifieds department can offer not only to feature the video ad on its website, but also establish systems to spread them on appropriate social networks in appropriate ways as a value-added (paid) service. Of course, the ad staff must bone up on social marketing etiquette and understand rules put down by external social networks.

Not as many people come to newspaper classifieds any more, as you well know. They go to Craigslist often, and often Craigslist is entertaining. The point of the be-funny strategy is to get more people coming to the newspaper classifieds site for the entertainment value. People will come with a strict search goal in mind, of course, but thinking creatively also gets more people visiting who don’t know that they want to buy something — but they’re exposed to it and sometimes sales are made. Classifieds from a newspaper become relevant again.

What have you got to lose? The current way of classifieds as practiced by much of the newspaper industry doesn’t seem to be working so well. Get creative.

We all know that incremental changes won’t save newspaper classifieds. It’s time to try some truly innovative ideas and experiments. So check out the latest NewsInnovation blog post by publisher John Newby:

Now Here’s A Game Changer For The Industry?

I love this idea. OK, I haven’t thought Newby’s idea through carefully enough to say whether or not I think it’s a good idea. But I love the boldness of it!

This is not for the faint of heart, Newby warns. But, “Once you’ve practically lost the real estate category; why not just jump into the real estate game or business as a company?”

Sounds crazy, eh? A few years ago it would be totally nuts for a newspaper company to consider something like that. But times are tough for newspapers, obviously, and for those publishers who feel that their local real estate revenue has dipped so far and isn’t likely to come back, perhaps it’s worth consideration.

Writes Newby:

“I submit that it would actually be quite easy. Simply venture into your local market and find a good broker that doesn’t have the highest marketshare, meet with him and lay out your new business proposal. Simply let him/her know your newspaper company has decided to open a real estate brokerage and is seeking a broker/manager of the new operation. Explain that this new brokerage will spare no advertising expense and will reward the brokers and agents with outstanding commission splits, the best around. Lastly explain to the broker, he/she will be provided with a base salary along with a piece of the action.”

Read all of Newby’s blog entry for all his thoughts.

But I just have to say, bravo, John! It’s this kind of out-there thinking that just might save the newspaper industry. We need more “crazy” ideas, because some of them won’t turn out to be crazy and might just help save the day for the industry.

What crazy ideas do you have? Please share them with us here on ReinventingClassifieds.com.

A couple of great advice pieces were published recently by some smart folks I know. Their ideas definitely pertain to classifieds reinvention, even though they may be speaking about online advertising overall.

1. Five Fatal Flaws that are killing local Internet plays – Dave Chase, SunValleyOnline.com (published on NewsInnovation.com)

This is an outstanding critique of fatal flaws that websites (including those of newspapers) make on the sales side. As he interacts with publishers, he sees the same problem areas over and over, including:

• Too many farmers, not enough hunters. That is, many a newspaper company has a sales staff used to managing a book of business for a long time. These sales people are ignoring 80-90% of potential advertisers in their market, because in the old days newspaper advertising was too expensive for many businesses. Chase says hire more “hunters” whose exclusive job is to go out and find new advertisers for the new, lower-priced ad opportunities now available from the newspaper and its digital properties.
• Shoe-level sales models don’t make as much sense anymore. If you can get some of those 80-90% of businesses to spend with you, they’ll be spending less than the traditional newspaper advertisers have in the past. Chase suggests a low-cost telesales organization rather than a field-based sales organization. (He didn’t mention this, but I’d add that automated self-serve ad placement also is absolutely vital in getting lower-spending new advertisers, and self-serve ad systems are more critical for online classifieds.)

Chase further believes newspaper industry innovators are focusing their business-model discussions too exclusively on ways to lower production costs and new ways to fund journalism. “While those items help, I’m convinced the only path to long-term economic viability is to directly address the revenue problem.”

Read the full article for several more excellent ad strategies.

2. Online ads done right – Alan Jacobson, Brass Tacks Design

This piece by the veteran newspaper and website designer is focused mostly on display or banner advertising on news websites, but there are some good lessons to be applied to classifieds as well. For example, take his idea of avoiding multiple ads on a webpage and devoting each page to a single killer ad that can’t be missed. Apply that, for example, in a page of auto for-sale listing results. When a site user searches for Ford Mustangs, for example, include a contextual display ad for a local Ford dealership, who has outbid all the other dealers for the placement; and make the ad big, bold, and creative.

Another excellent Jacobson tip: “Serve up ads on a contextually sensitive basis, rather than willy-nilly.” Now apply that to classifieds by creating Google AdSense-like blocks of classified text ads (say, for bikes for sale) and serve up that block within the website content related to cycling or recreation.

Jacobson’s main point is that most newspapers have done website advertising so badly that “Is it any wonder that most advertisers still prefer print?” Get smarter about online advertising and online classifieds, then you should start seeing revenues rising on the online side to a level that will better support the news organization.

We were looking for innovative and unusual ideas to reinvigorating newspaper classifieds when we offered $500 to the media professional who sent us the best one by the end of 2008. And the winning entry, by New York Times Regional Media Group online advertising project manager David Kiessling, fits the bill.

Kiessling, who is based in Winter Haven, Florida, brings us an old concept, “consignment” selling, reintroduced and recrafted for the new media era. Here’s his description:

“Use self-service ad placement tools to offer classifieds on a consignment basis. Under the consignment classified model the price of the ad is based on a percentage of the cost of the item sold. E-mail notifications and outbound calls are used to survey advertisers on the selling price. If the item does not sell it remains in print and online for another 30 days.

“The classified consignment model is aimed at traditional non-consumers of newspaper classifieds, who will be more compelled to use the service as a result of low or no up-front costs. The classified consignment model also allows newspapers to tap into an army of eBay Power Sellers, thrift shops, and dealer networks by making it easier for the customer to buy classifieds.

“Large-ticket items like homes and vehicles are now public record in most states so it is not difficult to uncover the actual selling price. Recruitment ads are easy to track since a phone call will reveal whether the position has been filled.

“Merchandise classifications are a little more difficult to verify the actual selling price. Several tax preparation software programs offer elaborate price guides for use with charitable contribution deductions. The price guides list thousands of item values based on the condition of the item. When an advertiser cannot be contacted or does not reply to the follow-up survey data, the deduction software can be used as a basis for determining the estimated value of the item.

“Will advertisers try to cheat the system? Absolutely. A small percentage of advertisers will try to cheat the system. Advertisers caught cheating get placed on the black list and pay in advance for all future ads.

“Publishers need to ask themselves would I rather receive no payment for the large volume of free ads that currently run in most newspapers or would I rather receive payment for those ads in return for assuming the risk that a small group may not remit with payment?”

We think this idea has some promise, if the challenges of oversight of selling price can be overcome and the process automated so as not to take up much human staff time. After all, one of the biggest problems that newspapers face with classifieds (what they have left of them) is that people no longer want to pay to place them. Why should they for many categories, since Craiglist and other free alternatives are available and work. If an effective and mostly cheat-proof system can be devised, then ads can be placed by a seller with no upfront cost, but a (verified) credit card number recorded which will be billed a consignment fee if the ad is successful.

It’s a pay-for-performance model, which is where the Internet seems to be taking the advertising world.

This may not be appropriate for all of a newspaper’s classifieds categories, and it will depend on the situation in your newspaper’s city. (If Craigslist isn’t operating nearby, you have less pressure to stop charging up-front fees for classified ads; if no one else in your market is giving away free home ads, then you can skip this idea for that category and try it elsewhere; etc.)

The challenges we see are in getting a consignment model to work without too much human intervention to verify completed transactions. But we applaud Kiessling for his out-of-the-box thinking. We’ll be sending him $500 as our contest winner.

Other entrants’ great ideas

From Edward Vielmetti

“I’d suggest a very old solution to the classifieds problem, going back to the copy of a newspaper I have from the 1880s.

“Stick the classified ads in-line in the text of the news, one or a few of them at a time, so that ads are interspersed throughout the copy that people actually read.

“Bonus points if your ad layout software does context-sensitive matching, so that Google-like, the article about cars is matched with car ads and the article about washing machines is mixed with washing machine ads. But don’t stuff the classifieds in the back where people ignore them. Mix them in.”

Vielmetti didn’t mention it, but another good option is to use his technique for upsells, where an ad is placed in the regular print and online classifieds sections, but the seller pays extra to also be included within editorial content. Also, advertising placed within a reader’s path over editorial content (that is, the reader’s eye must pass over it to get to the rest of the editorial) has been shown by eyetracking research to be more effective than ads placed to the side of content.

From Dustin Block

“Classifieds have to be a helluva lot more entertaining. Papers should encourage creativity in every aspect of the ad (fonts, wording, clip art, pictures) and come up with a better layout than streaming text in 9-point font.

“Half the fun of reading Craigslist is seeing what people are willing to barter and who’s trying to hook up with who. Newspaper classies need that sort of readability. They should be funny, revealing … even insightful.

“Add new categories like ‘Wit & Wisdom’ and let people submit quotes and jokes for free. Have someone start a national Classifieds wire with the best ads from around the country and let newspapers run them. Let readers text in Facebook/Twitter style status updates and run them every day. Hold regular haiku contests.

“It’s time to add life to a dead, dead page. Classifieds are the cheapest entry point for someone to write/advertise anything they want in their own words. Poets can get an audience of thousands for a few bucks. Blogs and websites can draw in new readers. Even artists could show work in a tight space.

“Make the Classifieds section the entry point for the connection between the newspaper and the reader. Charge a few bucks along the way, sure, but more importantly, convince car dealerships, Realtors, and employers that people want to read those ads. Make the classifieds entertaining.”

From DeAnn Rossetti

“I think that if the newspaper editors assign a good graphic designer to the classifieds section, and allow that designer some free reign on creativity, that will make the section look better, and with larger fonts, cleaner and clearer designs plus adding in an advertorial in a special box to ‘highlight’ one business a day or a week, that would appeal to business owners and get them to seek out the newspaper classifieds instead of Craigslist. Part of the reason classifieds are so short in papers is because they are so expensive. If newspapers offered better deals for those placing ads, and offered more value for the money by making the ads larger, adding graphics and design to make them look better, advertisers would be more willing to come back to papers.”

High pricing for newspaper classifieds came in for criticism from several of our contest entrants …

From Katherine Bostick

“The best way to get new customers for classified advertising is to lower your rates. I do not place classified ads for my small business because of the high cost of advertising in the newspaper. Also, small business with a small amount of capital cannot afford to place help wanted ads so they rely on signs in the window of their stores. I realize that inflation has hurt us all, but to survive and thrive, the newspaper industry needs to make adjustments as well. Perhaps lowering the price on help wanted and low-priced items for sale, while continuing the current cost for placing ‘for sale’ items that are more costly.”

From Christine Davis

“The answer is simple. The ads must be affordable. And newspaper circulation must increase. Those are the hard parts. As for the creative part, how about if we use the ‘Twitter’ format?”

And another vote for utilizing Twitter …

From Jon Lansner

“Why not offer ability, in right categories, service that also twitters the ads with a link … or create blogs or other social media tools, around — including the ads …”

Finally, there were calls to (finally) put print in the subservient position in newspaper organizations, focusing on the future of classifieds (online and mobile) rather than the past …

From Bob Andelman

“If I were a newspaper, I’d stop fighting online classifieds and work within. For example, every print classified should have within its lines a tiny URL so readers could go online and get more info, including a picture or video. Newspapers could charge extra for the link and multimedia; the chief selling points would be: 1) more detail about what is for sale, and 2) its searchability online to a wider audience. This should appeal to people who don’t even have (or need) online access because it broadens their potential market.”

From Mark Loundy

“Other than inventing a time machine and killing Craig Newmark’s grandpa, I think that newspapers will be better off spending their dwindling resources on transitioning away from print. As long as they have that massive financial weight around them, they will have no hope for long term survival.

“Chasing print consumers is a losing proposition. They’re dying of old age.

“Newspapers’ core value is local coverage by professional journalists utilizing medium-agnostic methods along with active user interaction. In other words: Professionally created written words, images, video, audio and user feedback and discussion with active staff participation. Spend money on journalism.”

Congratulations to Will Sommer of Georgetown University, who has won our student competition for best idea to save newspaper classifieds (and will be receiving $500 from ReinventingClassifieds.com).

More about Sommer and his idea below. But since he made his entry a multimedia presentation, first take a couple minutes to watch, then read on. (Clicking the image below will open a new window with the presentation on Sommer’s website.)

Sommers, age 20, is a junior at Georgetown majoring in international politics, but he hopes to become a journalist. He says he was prompted to enter the contest because he realizes that classifieds revenues are so important in keeping newspapers solvent, and he sees the industry floundering to find a way to stay in the classifieds game.

To his young eyes, printed newspaper classifieds are unattractive and, frankly, boring. So he calls his concept for saving classifieds “Laughs and Facts,” and suggests that turning them (online and in print) into something more entertaining and fun as well as useful could go a long way toward bringing new readers to classified ads.

The idea is that a classifieds section, whether in print or online, should bring in casual readers who may not be looking for something specific, in addition to the regular crowd of seekers of something specific (new apartment, new car, etc.).

How to do that? First, Sommer suggests, recognize that your newspaper classifieds can’t for the most part complete with Craigslist and its (mostly) free ads. So for many categories, give away classified ads online. But moderate them to keep out the spammers and scammers.

So you’re giving advertisers something, he says, and now it’s time for the advertisers to give something back: entertainment value.

His intriguing idea is to hold ongoing contests for the best ads, where a selection regularly get published in the print edition, get high placement online, and get pushed out via various social network presences and other channels that the newspaper may have, including as pre-rolls for newspaper-produced video. Sellers are encouraged to be creative in crafting their ads.

With funny, entertaining ads showing up in the print edition and elsewhere, the quality of ad content will drive people to the newspaper’s full classifieds online and mobile classifieds services, where they’ll see some category ads that sellers have paid for, and see paid contextual display ads that have been sold around the free classifieds (ads-as-content strategy). Featured “best of” ads placed in editorial sections of the print edition can drive people to open up the full printed classifieds section

Think about it, Sommer says, there’s much precedent for entertaining ads to draw in readers: The New York Times Review of Books for years has had wonderful quirky classified ads that are fun to read; Craigslist is not only functional, but it also has some sections that are fun to read (e.g., “Missed Connections”). Craigslist even has sections of Best Ads that in effect serve an editorial function.

Sommer thinks that his “Laugh and Facts” approach to newspaper classifieds “might just make classifieds the most interesting part of the paper,” and drive readers to full online classifieds as a result. The addition of casual readers introduces new customers for advertisers — folks who didn’t know they wanted something but spotted it serendipitously. Add those people to the individuals who know exactly what they want and go to newspaper classifieds to find it, then you’ve demonstrated that some growth is possible.

And Craig’s advertisers are not the only ones who know how get their ads to stand out with quirkiness and entertainment. Sommer may just have the plan to make newspaper classifieds less boring, and thus more profitable and used more frequently once again!