Sarah Sinclair, Newsaper Advertising Executive Joins Classified Concepts As Client Services Manager
Santa Barbara, CA — Sarah Sinclair, newly-appointed Client Services Manager for
Classified Concepts, the leading solutions provider for print and online newspaper classified advertising, has always loved the fast pace of the newspaper industry.
"I directed the classified advertising department of the
Santa Barbara News-Press for most of my professional career and it has been exciting to utilize my experience in a category of business that is needed by nearly all newspapers," Sinclair said. "The idea of providing content that crosses over from print to online readership is the key to survival for today's newspapers. The content has to be compelling, it has to pique readers' interest, and take advantage of the speed of the Internet," she said.
Classified Concepts provides revenue generating programs to more than 100 newspapers nation-wide by using print and online locator maps which allow readers who are shopping for open houses, apartment rentals, and garage sales to easily view advertised locations and send turn-by-turn directions and other details to their phones and email.
"There was a time," says Sinclair, "When there was a clear-cut line between newspapers and outside service providers. My job, as a service provider, is to help our existing clients maximize their classified advertising sales performance and to help new clients launch their programs successfully while helping them understand how they can increase their revenue in this multi-level advertising platform."
While Director of Advertising at the
Santa Barbara News-Press, Sinclair had 45 employees and managed all of the retail, classified and national print and online advertising initiatives for the newspaper. Sinclair recalled, "In August of 2003, Peter Sproul, from
Classified Concepts first presented us with the idea of running an open-house map in our Sunday Real Estate Section. Given that real estate is always a 'hot' topic and a focal point of local interest, I loved the idea of using maps to call attention to the locations of the advertised homes. I saw right away," she continues, "that it would create a new and exciting tool readers could actually use."
In six short months, Sinclair and her team were able to retool the entire section by increasing color capacity on the real estate pages, allocating prime advertising positions on the front and back of the map pages and creating a numbering system and format for the advertisers on the maps. The
Santa Barbara News-Press became the first
Classified Concepts newspaper client. From the time the program was launched, in February of 2004, she never had an unsold ad on any of those pages. "In fact," she says, "we had to add pages to the section to keep up with the demand."
After 20-years in the industry, Sinclair left the
Santa Barbara News-Press in February of 2007 to become an industry consultant. One of her first assignments was to conduct a client survey on behalf of
Classified Concepts to determine industry satisfaction of its program. After interviewing over 60 newspaper colleagues — all of whom were client users — she learned that locator maps were one of the most successful components of each of their classified advertising programs.
"My experience as a Classified Advertising Director (CAD) gives me the unique insider's perspective to the challenge papers face everyday," says Sinclair. "I am excited to be able to teach our clients how to integrate their print and online classified advertising programs now that I'm working from the outside in."
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, and a resident of Southern California since age seven, Sinclair has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She lives in Santa Barbara with her two teenage sons and her partner Fred Shriver.
For more information, contact Stephanie Jensen at 805.685.3100 x 107, or
stephanie@maps.com
About Classified Concepts
Classified Concepts is a division of Maps.com, a map and solutions provider serving the business, consumer, and educational markets. More information about the Online Locator 2.0, as well as Classified Concepts' other services, can be found at
www.classifiedconcepts.com.
About Maps.com
Founded in 1991, Santa Barbara based Maps.com is the industry's most comprehensive mapping services company with offerings in the business, consumer, and education marketplaces. Whether it's creating a regional wall map or planning a multi-stop travel route online, Maps.com strives to meet the mapping needs of today's digital era. Today, over 2 million monthly visitors, 8,500 U.S. Schools, and both small and large companies, such as Lowe's Home Improvement, Nextel, UniversalMap Enterprises and AAA currently benefit from Maps.com's vast service offerings. For more information,
www.maps.com.
