Classified Development

...Classified Nuts & Bolts Solutions...

Richard Clark has worked in Newspaper Classifieds for over 30 years. (He claims to have started very young.) After spending the bulk of his newspaper career with the Freedom Communications group, Clark purchased the well-respected Classified Development consulting company and has operated it full time for just over 10 years. During that time Clark's rate-structuring and assumptive sales techniques have generated literally millions of dollars in new revenue for the well over 200 newspapers he has worked with.

Clark's client list includes newspapers in: Advance Communications, Boone Newspapers, Freedom Communications, Hagadone Corporation, Home News Enterprise, Journal-Register Company, Lee Enterprises, Media General, Media News, Midlands (World Herald Group) Newspapers, News Media, Pioneer Newspapers, Rust Communications, Sandusky Newspapers, Schurz Communications, Swift Newspapers, and Times-Shamrock, as well as a number of independent newspapers.

Clark reports that the best thing about traveling around to so many newspapers is the chance it affords him to continue to update the Classified Development program with best practices and profitable innovations from classified departments around the country.

Clark, his wife Lisa and their three young children live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. One of Clark's proudest moments came when his six-year-old daughter, Caroline, was coloring on sheets of blank paper she had stapled together. When asked what she was working on, Caroline replied, "I'm making a book about one of your trips to a newspaper." Clark inquired, "What are those boxes at the bottom of the page for, sweetheart?" "Those are for the ads," Caroline answered without looking up. Quite proudly, Clark asked, "Are you going to give it to me to take on my trip tomorrow?" Again, without stopping her work Caroline replied, "No Daddy, I'm going to set up a little stand in the garage and sell it to you on your way out." While paying Caroline for her booklet the next day, Clark felt pretty sure that the future of his company would be in good hands.

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The mission of a Classified Ad-visor is to educate both existing and potential advertisers about the value of the local entity’s combination of Print, Internet-based, and other products, balancing the short-term desire for efficiency with the long-term necessity of building positive relationships with advertisers.

 

A major part of this effort involves ethically guiding each of these advertisers into the type of ad that will most effectively meet the informational needs of our readers/viewers, thereby satisfying the advertisers’ need to reach the most-qualified prospects. 

 

This results in the type of classified content that will meet our local entity’s revenue goal attainment requirements, while simultaneously strengthening the local classified franchise. 

 

By passing along customer feedback to mangers, Ad-visors provide a valuable tool for measuring the effectiveness of current operations and the design of future offerings.

 

            To be successful, Ad-visors must understand the nature of the trust factor inherent in the company’s strong local brands. 

 

Ad-visors must also continually strive to improve their contribution to this equation through ongoing training, broader experience, and increased product knowledge.