The Tyler (Texas) Morning Telegraph has reversed slipping classified ad sales by transforming its ad representatives from order takers to inside sales professionals.

The Morning Telegraph (daily, 43,717; Sunday, 50,105) last summer rolled out classified ad sales software developed by Brainworks Software Inc.

Photos: Tyler Morning Telegraph

The applications, Classified Advertising and Classified Pagination, have allowed the newspaper to offset flat ad lineage stemming from the sputtering economy and the Iraqi conflict, said Art McClelland, the paper’s ad director.

Art McClelland

In March, for example, as war worries intensified, classified ad revenues increased 10 percent despite lineage that mirrored last year’s totals. April classified ad revenues rose 6 percent.

That jump was due to in large part to the marketing capabilities ad reps have reaped from the software, McClelland said.

Transition

“There has been a management transition over the years to customer service,” he said. “One thing was to change the attitude in the salespeople. This new software gave them the tools to be part of the team. It helped them realize what they could do as part of this philosophy.”

New system helps classified ad reps maximize sales options.

The Morning Telegraph got a lot of its sales traction from the software’s ability to provide a multitude of upsell features, thus allowing ad reps to market sales options rather than merely take orders. As a result, more than 75 percent of the newspaper’s ads boast at least one upsell feature; many have three or four.

Case in point: a classified ad selling a cruise ticket might now have a logo depicting a ship blended with an island. The ad might also contain reverse type, borders, screens or other art elements. The ad rep can then fax or e-mail the customer the finished result and make changes as needed — while remaining on the phone with the buyer.

That flexibility is in sharp contrast to the newspaper’s former classified ad management system, which only permitted a single variant.

Involved with selling

As a result, the ad takers are involved. “They are really excited,” said Lauren Ballard, classified ad manager. “They show what they have done to the rest of the phone room. It has really improved how they work together as a team.”



Lauren Ballard

The application’s reporting capabilities, meanwhile, means the Morning Telegraph can react almost immediately to changes in ad sales. McClelland said.

“Sales reporting is everything to an ad director, call manager or retail manager,” he said. “You need to be able to analyze business constantly to analyze trends. You can stop the bleeding when you know where the bleeding is.”

Unlike some applications, Brainworks has built-in reporting rather than requiring an external reporting package such as Crystal Reports.

The newspaper uses the software to monitor multiple sales categories, among them, color, lineage, sales by section and classification, McClelland said.

“We have transitioned. We react a lot quicker. I have spoken to sales reps, ‘You usually (sell) twice what you did today. What happened?’ We are on top of sales trends every day.”

A total of 15 ad representatives use the software, which runs locally on a Windows server.