Attitudes about outlook for newspaper classifieds

Welcome to ReinventingClassifieds.com's first survey of classifieds professionals. If you are a classifieds manager or work in the field, or are a news publisher or manager who makes decisions about business strategy, or are otherwise involved in the field, then we'd like to learn your opinions. Your answers will help the newspaper industry reinvent classified advertising. Thanks in advance!

WHY TAKE THIS SURVEY? Participants will get access to full results. Those not taking the survey will be limited to viewing an executive summary of the results, or pay a fee for full access to results.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All questions are optional. If there's one that you cannot or will not answer, just skip it.

1. What type of organization do you work for? (select any that apply)

2. How do you feel about the future of newspaper classifieds?

3. More specifically, which of these statements do you agree most with?

	Newspaper classifieds' "problems" are overhyped; there's not a problem
	Newspaper classifieds will recover and be fine
	Newspaper classifieds are in trouble, but probably can be saved
	Newspaper classifieds are doomed; there's no hope
	I don't agree with any of those statements

4. What best describes your position?

5. Do you work for a newspaper or newspaper classifieds operation?

	Yes
	No

6. What change in revenues did your classifieds operation experience from 2006 to 2007?

7. Do you work for a classifieds operation NOT affiliated with a newspaper?

	Yes
	No

8. What change in revenues did your classifieds operation experience from 2006 to 2007?

9. If your classifieds operation is in trouble, what would you be willing to do to save it and turn things around? (Multiple selections are OK.)

10. If you came to realize that in order to save your classifieds operation you'd need to scrap your existing publishing system, how likely would you be to take such a drastic step?

	Likely (depending on value of alternative)
	Open-minded
	Skeptical
	Unwilling to change
	I wouldn't change because current system is flexible enough to accommodate anything new we might ask it to do

11. If relevant to you, please rate how well you feel the various areas of your classifieds operation are doing. (1 star = poorly; 5 stars = very well. Leave category blank if not relevant to your business.)

	Revenue growth	Traffic/usage
General merchandise/private party
Autos
Real estate/property
Jobs/recruitment

12. Which of these factors do you think are most responsible for newspaper classifieds' downturn? (Please rank, with top choice being most responsible and bottom choice being least responsible.)

1]	Clients becoming competitors (Realtors, auto dealers)
2]	Newspapers not reacting fast enough
3]	Consumers shifting to online
4]	Economic downturn
5]	Free classifieds (Craigslist, et al)
6]	Online classifieds competitors (Monster.com, et al)
7]	Lack of innovation by newspapers
8]	Ineffective classifieds managers, lack of vision

13. In 2 years, what percentage of classified ads will be placed online?

14. What do you think is the best solution for saving newspaper classifieds?

15. ReinventingClassifieds.com is designing solutions for saving newspaper classifieds. What would you most like us to offer? How can we be of help to you?

16. Tell us about you. (You'll get access to survey results. Only those who take this survey get access; others will only get an executive summary.) We require company name and your title in order to weed out responses from non-qualified individuals. We will not publish any information that identifies your company as the source of any specific data.

Name

Title

Company

Address

City

State

Postal code

Country

E-mail Address Required Question

Phone number

URL

	Daily newspaper
	Weekly or other non-daily newspaper
	Free-distribution newspaper
	Free-distribution classifieds-only newspaper
	Corporate HQ of newspaper company
	Online classifieds (website)
	TV station
	Radio station
	Educational institution
	Consultant
	Other

	Owner
	Publisher
	Executive-level manager
	Mid-level manager
	Professional staff
	Editor
	Consultant
	Researcher
	Educator
	Other

More than minus 20%	minus 11-20%	minus 1-10%	about the same	plus 1-10%	plus 11-20%	More than plus 20%

More than minus 20%	minus 11-20%	minus 1-10%	about the same	plus 1-10%	plus 11-20%	More than plus 20%

	It's not in trouble; I would make no changes
	Revamp or redesign print classifieds pages
	Lower prices for ads
	Raise prices for ads
	Standardize prices (get rid of complex pricing rules)
	Offer free classifieds for some categories
	Automate order-taking process (remove or reduce number of human customer service reps)
	Offer multimedia and video ads
	Create local buying/selling service (warehouse merchandise for sellers)
	Replace your classifieds publishing system
	Shift to web-first or online-centric classifieds publishing system
	Share your ads with competing publishers
	Share your ads with other websites
	Share revenues with others who publish your ads
	Develop a local classifieds network serving local websites
	Partner with an online competitor (Yahoo Jobs, etc.)
	Other
	Other