The advertising department is where you work and, depending on the size of your publication, may be comprised of many smaller departments. While most members of this department are salespeople, creative services may also be here.

 

In fact, some publications subscribe to the "team" approach, where each artist in creative services is assigned to and is actually seated next to one or more advertising salespeople in an effort to better service their customers.

 

The salespeople themselves are often grouped depending on what kinds of ads they sell.

 

Classified
For example, the ad reps that handle the classified ads running in the classified section are probably grouped together.

 

The classified department handles a number of different types of ads. The line classifieds, which usually appear somewhere near the back of the newspaper, usually take the form of narrow columns comprised mainly of text categorized under various headings such as "Help Wanted", "Cars For Sale", "Homes For Sale", etc.

 

Some of these ads are sold by people known as inbound salespeople or ad reps, who wait for people to call them, such as an individual who wants to sell his car.

 

Other line ads are sold by people known as outbound ad reps or salespeople, who call businesses and ask them if they'd like to run, such as a realtor who has been running in a competing publication.

 

Also part of the classified department are the classified display salespeople. They sell the larger display ads, that is, the ads with borders around them that could run multiple-column widths in the classified section. These ads would include the larger automotive, real estate, and help wanted (recruitment) ads.

 

There may also be outbound ad reps who sell display ads under special headings such as "Professional Directory" or "Vacation Getaways".

 

These print products probably has a similar counterpart within your digital edition that these people sell, too.

 

All these functions could be handled by the same person, but that should give you a good overview of what the department does.

 

As a whole, the classified advertising department brings in significant revenues to the newspaper and generally charges a slightly higher rate for their ad space compared to ad rates for the rest of the publication. Perhaps it's because the classified section is one of the best read parts of the newspaper.

 

The remaining ad reps sell into the non-classified section of the print and digital editions of your newspaper, often called "Run of Press" (or ROP for short), and will probably be part of the major accounts, national, local, or local inside sales departments.

 

In addition, in larger organizations, there are salespeople who may be dedicated to selling those advertisers who want to insert into your newspapers a separate one- or multiple-page promotional piece, often called a "preprint insert" or free standing insert" (or FSI).

 

Next: The Local Advertising Department