Upselling

The main purpose of creating a branded classified presence is to generate additional revenue compared to print only.

We call this ‘Upselling’. It can take many different forms and here are some of our approaches.

Upselling begins in the pre-launch period when we build the site and train and prepare the Publisher’s sales and admin team for selling the new online offering. During this period we also provide advice and ideas on how best to promote the new online services. This involves a wide range of sales support (further training, one-to-one coaching on the salesfloor, dual calling, sales support material, and close work with the admin team too). We hold regular review meetings with our client partners and help them develop their strategy seeing it as a key part of our responsibility to be feeding ideas and best practice through and to be your eyes and ears in the market – especially when it comes to upselling.

Many partners have yet to develop clear ways of making revenue from the Property and Motor sites we provide and often prefer to offer online listings free to Estate Agents (Realtors) and Motor Dealers as a way of retaining their print spend. Private advertising from individuals seeking to sell their cars or homes is, however, an immediate revenue opportunity.

The real revenue opportunities though currently lie in the Recruitment sector. This is where our partners are making significant revenue which is going some way to replacing the revenue they are losing in print. The main revenue opportunities that our system provides include: -

Online listing…advertisers pay to have their job listed on the jobsite for a set number of days e.g. 21 days.

Enhanced listing…advertisers can pay extra to have their job brought to the top of a results list and highlighted with a tint background

‘Hotjobs’ or ‘Topjobs’…a certain number of jobs can be displayed on a rotating list on the front page of the jobsite and advertisers can pay extra to have their job featured on this list

Profile pages…advertisers or agencies can pay to have a link to a page which gives detailed information on their company

Logos…the system allows our partners to upload advertisers’ logos and have logos automatically displayed when jobs appear on the results of a search, and when the jobseeker clicks through to the full job details

Banners and button ads…our system is set up so the partner retains full control of all the advertising spaces (and editorial content) on their jobsite

CV matching…this is the high value element. Advertisers pay extra to have their job matched against the CV database automatically, and suitable candidates are emailed with the job details and invited to apply

Our client partners typically sell the CV matching service as an ‘assumptive’ package – along with an online listing and in conjunction with a print ad.

So, print + online listing + CV matching = a complete recruitment solution

As recruitment advertising migrates from print to online, the pricing balance of the package is shifting so more will be charged for the digital element in times to come.

We normally train and support our Partner’s sales teams to sell a complete recruitment solution rather than piece together a package starting with the print ad. The piecemeal approach can be tiring for the sales representative and offputting for the advertiser – serving only to reduce the upsell conversion rate.

We can provide our partners short, simple and persuasive scripts. We can also provide them sales support information, key benefits and how to answer objections and provide information on the number and type of relevant CVs in the database or show them how they can access this information themselves.

The % conversion rate (which is the proportion of print ads that are upsold to include the digital package) at our most successful partners is above 85%, the current average level is around 40%.

Upselling print ads to include the digital package is the predominant approach, however we also help our partners take their sales level to a second level of selling –to non-print customers. The main areas of opportunity are: -

Sell contracts to Recruitment Agencies or large employers so they can put their full inventory of jobs on the partner site. The job details can be accepted as a feed and will appear automatically as job listings. They can then be upgraded to a CV matching ad by either the advertiser using password access to the back office system to input/amend/delete their own ads – or by the partner admin team.

Target sectors where the partner does not typically carry business e.g IT or Finance positions. Historically, advertisers have looked to other media such as business magazines or headhunters to fill vacancies in these sectors. However, our partners have new-found strength from having thousands of relevant CVs in the matching database and can now pitch for this business.

Canvass business from the growing band of online competitors. There are hundreds of jobsites operating, covering all niches. Our partners can fight back by targeting these sites, noting the jobs that are being advertised for their geographical area and then, armed with the relevant CV statistics, approach the advertiser to encourage them to use the CV matching service.

All these second level sales opportunities offer the chance for the partner to reverse-sell the job advertisement as an online listing – and into print too.

Finally, we support our partners with their sales efforts by providing presentations, sales scripts, sales support material, CV statistics, dual calling and training for advertisers/agencies on how to use the MatchWork Back Office System. A lot of hard work is involved but the opportunities are there and this is a very long-term business, because the approaches being developed now will work for a long time into the future.