2) Topic: Grow Your Classifieds Advertising Revenue

Date: Friday, 13th September

Time: 9:30 am – 5:30 pm

Venue: Bougeanvilla, BIEC Conference Complex

Classified advertising is migrating steadily online, but there are still great ways for newspapers to grow revenue. Even in markets with strong free-classified competitors, people are still selling cars, homes and stuff and employers still need to find employees. You can even use your online classified offerings to help strengthen your print classifieds. The workshop will provide specific, actionable information about the new classified environment.

After this workshop, you will:

- Understand the trends in print and online classifieds

- Take away specific, actionable steps to take to strengthen your classifieds 

   revenue.

- Know how to refine your classifieds strategy for the future.

Workshop chairperson: Katja Riefler, AIM Group principal and director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), has a broad background working with newspapers, trade associations and online services to shape media companies for the future. As an expert on digital developments, she works closely with the German newspaper association BDZV; the German newspaper marketing association ZMG, and WAN-IFRA. Riefler helped found the first Internet organization owned by and for German newspapers, MBT Online KG, in 1996. It was a common venture of 18 Bavarian media houses. As the first executive at MBT Online, she helped build the business and oversaw development of Germany’s first common classified database among newspapers. Her book, “Zeitung Online: Neue Wege zu Lesern und Anzeigenkunden” (“Newspapers online: New ways to reach readers and advertisers”) was published in 1995 and the first book on newspapers and the Internet in German. She’s also the author of the world’s first report on digital editions of newspapers, published in January 2003. She has written several major reports on newspapers managing digital challenges.