Similar to the CareerBuilder combined-newspaper-reach concept, RedMatch-hosted TheJobNetwork.com primarily serves smaller print/online papers, including numerous weeklies and independents, helping them extend the geographic reach of their employment ads.

"CareerBuilder does a marvelous job," said Marc Wilson, TownNews founder and president, "but for many [papers] it's just too expensive." TheJobNetwork.com adds newspaper's recruitment ads to its site at no charge to the paper. Newspapers that desire co-branding and a The Job Network look-and-feel on their own sites pay only $75 a month for the privilege.

"What sets us apart as well is that we offer a four-legged sales call," Wilson said. "We'll join the newspaper's sales staff on a visit to major employers to explain The Job Network concept on behalf of the paper."

The Job Network seems to be working well for newspapers. According to Wilson, TownNews has already signed up almost 400 newspapers to the network, for a combined total of 135,000 job postings and 70,000 resumes. Wilson reports 3.5 million page views, 180,000 unique visitors and 500,000 visits in total as of December 2004.

Creating revenue
While it's still a new product and there aren't a lot of metrics, newspaper execs tell us that the short-term results are already creating substantial recruitment advertising revenue or increases in reach.

The Daily Press, an 8,750 circulation newspaper in St. Mary's, PA, started with The Job Network this past fall and now realizes 55,000 unique visitors each month -- a significant increase. According to classified advertising manager Wayne Bauer, employment classifieds are now the third-most visited area of the paper's site, and The Daily Press has already realized a 20 percent increase in employment advertising revenue since introducing The Job Network.

Shirlanda Braxton, director of classified advertising for Maryland's Patuxent Publishing Co., concurs. Patuxent, the largest publisher of community newspapers, magazines and telephone directories in the state of Maryland, is owner of Classifido.net, an online product that combines the classifieds of 32 partnering newspapers, only 13 of which are owned by Patuxent. Weekly independents such as The Baltimore Times, The Montgomery Sentinel and The Annapolis Times joined Classifido.net more than 5 years ago to more effectively compete for ad dollars in the lucrative Washington, D.C.-area market.

According to Braxton, The Job Network program, while only very recent, seems to be a good addition to their competitive strategy. "We just started with The Job Network only two and a half weeks ago," said Braxton, "and while it's too early for statistics on advertising response, we already have 500 resumes in the database as a result."

Two tiers of service
There are two levels of The Job Network purchase a newspaper can make, as well as two levels of advertising choice for the employers.

A newspaper that chooses the Basic Platform would have a link on its site to TheJobNetwork.com, where all ads are consolidated under a single interface. The newspaper location would be set as the default. All of the newspaper's employment ads, liners as well as display, would automatically post to the Job Network site (unless the paper should wish otherwise. Most, however, have opted to include all.) The paper's ad reps could still, with the Basic Platform, sell upgraded ads (Top Job listings on the national site, for example) to advertisers, to generate additional revenue.

The paper's job candidates can view jobs that match their criteria without having to search; they accomplish this by opening an online account and storing their resume; they can apply online as well. An interactive salary survey is also part of the basic package.

A newspaper that chooses to purchase the upgraded Job Network service buys the ability to have its own branding on the national site. Additional upselling opportunities are available, such as online candidate management, and link to advertisers' own sites (with automatic publishing of ads on both). Local jobs receive priority listing on the national site, and ads can be posted directly online. The online candidate management feature for advertisers offers a candidate scoring and grading system; applications are sent via email or fax complete with qualifying details.

TownNews charges no upfront fee to newspapers for either package. There is a per-ad fee ... for line advertising [and]...for display. Ad rates, as well as costs to advertisers of upsell features, and the decision to force the buy or not are solely the auspices of each newspaper.

Brandon Potter is classified advertising manager at the Logan, Utah, Herald Journal, a 14,500-circulation Pioneer Newspapers Group daily. Potter recommends that newspapers purchase the upgraded version. "It makes the system work the way it's supposed to work," he said. "The basic version's matching system for employers is not up to par, but the upgraded version works beautifully."

Potter highly recommends The Job Network but advises classified managers to be sure they fully understand the system before going online with it. All Pioneer papers started out not doing so and they did not do well. We retrained and now we're doing fine."

The Herald Journal joined The Job Network not quite three months ago and while Potter did not disclose a revenue figure, he did say that it represented a substantial increase -- no doubt due in part to the fact that the paper just initiated a flat rate increase across-the-board, making online liner ads a forced buy. They are just beginning to integrate the display ads. "We also looked at CareerSite," Potter said. "It was a little less costly but offered no reverse-matching for employers. We needed that."

A walk-through
For a walk-through of an actual site, we go to www.SMDailyPress.com, the home page of The Daily Press in St. Mary's, PA. Choosing "classifieds," and then "employment" from the classifieds home page brings us to the co-branded Job Network/Daily Press employment page. The URL reads The Job Network, but the banner is The Daily Press. The first 50 of 639 local jobs are displayed on the front page "below the fold." Quick Job Search and Job Match Passport features hold the top spots on the page. Candidates can search by category, managerial level and keyword.  They can also search a specific company's job opportunities. "Location" defaults to St. Mary's, although if the applicants were to check the "Click to view additional locations" box, all other U.S. TownNews member papers would display, with an option to choose as many areas as the job-seeker would wish. Job Match passport requires free registration. This is a very short process (user name, password, location) after which the candidate chooses to create her or his profile by job title or preferences. The choices then are preferred field of work, work locations, whether full time, part time, free-lance/contract or internship, shift preference, and minimum salary. From this information The Job Network system finds applicable job postings and the candidate receives automated notifications as jobs become available that fit the criteria. Job listings include company name, linked job title (takes you to full ad copy), newspaper name, date of the ad's creation and an "apply" link. If an advertiser has opted to allow online applications, the next page will ask for the job candidate to log in, register or apply without registration. If the advertiser prefers other response methods -- phone, fax, mail, for example -- a pop-up will remind the candidate of this. A column to the left of the job title shows, by display of a newspaper icon, that there is a print display ad available for viewing online.

The deal process
The process to link your newspaper to the Job Network varies somewhat, based on whether you are one of the 800 current TownNews members. Among its other newspaper partnership offerings, the vendor includes News Engine -- ( NewSys, a turnkey product for producing media-oriented Web sites,) Town News Classifieds, a PDF ad-converter program, Top Ads, Advanced Business Directory, a self-publish calendar for newspaper advertisers, or any of its real estate, automotive and health verticals. If you've already signed on for one of these other TownNews products you can easily add The Job Network with a phone conference and PowerPoint presentation. If you're new to the TownNews organization, you'll want a face-to-face presentation by one of its six sales staff. "We travel all the time, doing just that" said Wilson.

Other vendors
There are many technology vendors that specifically support online advertising and ad-network capabilities. We mentioned CareerBuilder --owned by the Tribune, Gannett and Knight Ridder companies -- and PowerOne Media's CareerSite, a provider of private-label services. Another private-label provider is CareerCast, which also makes it possible to sell into a U.S.-wide network of newspapers and non-newspapers. There's also Morris Digital Works from Morris Communications; Classifieds2Go.com, in partnership with newspaper ASP 1Up Software; and Media Span Group -- among others.

© 2005, Classified Intelligence LLC. Reprinted with permission.