Toby Dayton at Diggings has a remarkable study regarding regional newspapers and their use of online employment ads in conjunction with printed employment ads. I posted earlier this week that I do not understand why some hiring companies continue to view the newspaper as the top option for ad placement. It isn’t. Online employment ads continue to expand while newspaper circulations continue to decline.
Here are the results from Toby’s study (my emphasis):
…we were surprised at how ineffective the dailies were in cross-selling print and online postings to their employer advertisers. Across all 6 categories, the average percentage of print ads that also appeared on their respective daily paper€™s web site was 62%, with a specific breakdown for each paper as follows:
71% – Minneapolis Star Tribune
70% – Omaha World Herald
67% – Fargo Forum
62% – Wichita Eagle
60% – Milwaukee Journal
60% – Sioux Falls Argus Leader
58% – St. Cloud Times
52% – Des Moines Register
I guess we can be proud of our ridiculous local paper for leading this motley crew. The percentage seems inverted – I would expect a “modern” newspaper would default to placing ads online and then cross-selling down to the printed paper. Not so with these Luddites.