Beleaguered publishers have struggled to find good news when it comes to classified advertising. The change of habits has created new products to sell your house, your dog, your garage sale and your car. Up until recently, that alternative was often free which made it difficult for newspapers to compete.
That has changed, at least for automotive advertising with the announcement that Craigslist will now start charging auto dealers $5 per vehicle for a 30 day listing. I think this is a great opportunity for print and digital publishers to again compete in this portion of traditional classified advertising.
Craigslist made the announcement in late November, though I honestly had not heard about it until recently. The $5 charge was to start on December 3, as the website looks for ways to gain more revenue. Details from Craigslist can be found at http://www.craigslist.org/about/ctd
While all auto dealers used Craigslist for their inventory, it was smaller independents that utilized it the most around where I'm located. It was free and targeted. It worked too, but I think the effectiveness was helped tremendously by no cost aspect.
Traditional and digital publishers need to regroup and plan an strategy to work on the independent auto dealers in their market; especially those that have used Craigslist in the past. Free is a difficult thing to compete against, but the game has change.
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