UAE | Media
An exemplary business model
Starting as a section for free classified advertisements 23 years ago, Gulf News classifieds has expanded and reinvented itself over the years
- By Nadia Saleem, Staff Reporter
- Published: 01:18 September 30, 2008
Starting as a section for free classified advertisements 23 years ago, Gulf News classifieds has expanded and reinvented itself over the years
Classifieds, one of the most successful products of Gulf News, started in 1985 with just eight pages in the tabloid section. Today it totals more than 400 pages - the biggest classifieds section in any daily publication in the Middle East and North Africa.
The growth of the classifieds section reflects that of Gulf News and, to a certain degree, the growth of the UAE economy. Over the past 23 years, it has grown from strength to strength.
In fact, its success stands out as an exemplary business model and could be a great case study for researchers. Shakun Mohnani, Group Advertisement Manager, sheds light on the development of classifieds over the decades.
"When I joined in 1985, classifieds was just about starting and was undergoing a full revamp that occurred in December of the same year," Mohnani says. We started with two full and two part-time employees working in the section. Our job was to get clients from competing newspapers, which was tough because we were starting at a time when Gulf News had a circulation of only 3,500 copies."
Mohnani says initially it was a challenge to convince companies to advertise with Gulf News as it had a comparatively small circulation. With innovative techniques and strategies, however, the hurdle was crossed.
"We started as a free classifieds section. Today, 23 years since, people still call us a ‘free classifieds' although there are only a few classifications that are free," she says.
The staff did not have newspaper sales or advertising backgrounds, but only general sales experience. "We began with trial and error and worked our way through the challenges. Our efforts were received with positive response," Mohnani says, "and the daunting territory was conquered."
From an eight-page version in the tabloid, the classifieds section was moved to the main paper, consisting of four and-a-half pages in broadsheet. As Gulf News became a success, so did classifieds alongside it.
In November 1989, Mohnani became the supervisor of the classifieds section, four years after its first revamp. She then became the classifieds manager and then the group's manager. In 1989 Gulf News classifieds was already ahead of its competitors, she says.
Five years after its inception, classifieds was revamped yet again in 1990 into an independent pullout section. "Our success was so great that we reached a point where we were unable to accommodate all the classifieds advertising within the one pullout. We then had to individually take out sections."
The first section to be removed was the jobs. So all classifieds vacancies were separated from the main section. What is now titled Appointments started as a weekly pullout and is now printed five times a week. Next came the Properties. In 2000 Properties was granted its own section.
As business in Dubai started booming, Gulf News began to set up cash counters in various locations in the UAE to receive classified advertisement bookings. After Dubai and Abu Dhabi, additional counters were opened in Sharjah, Deira, Bur Dubai, Karama, Al Ain and Fujairah. Staff numbers went up to about 200.
"The first boom was experienced in 1991. Dubai became the focus during the Gulf War and people from the GCC started moving in. That's when Gulf News classifieds thrived. A greater boom came in 2003 and 2004 when business in general and the real estate in particular started to flourish. Gulf News promoted the boom in Dubai and that has helped us a lot," says Mohnani.
Classifieds not only started single volumes, but second volumes of Properties, and Freehold also came into print. Around the same time Gulf News launched magazines such as Wheels and Property Weekly under a new entity - Al Nisr Media FZ-LLC.
Classifieds then started its own call centre manned by different teams to help streamline the operation. "It allowed more focus on the task and slightly eased the pressure," Mohnani says. The call centre now has a staff of 40.
The content that was earlier under classifieds is now more focused. "More pullout options make the search easy for readers. If someone is looking for a job, they can just pick up the Appointments section rather than go through 400 pages, which is what we have now under the classifieds group. There has been an exponential increase in volume."
Speaking of recent success, Mohnani refers to the website GNAds4U where all classifieds ads are transferred. "GNAds4U is doing extremely well." With more than 45,000 ads, the website has separate sections for jobs, cars, properties. The website has more than 32,000 daily visitors on average and more than one million daily page views.
"Property ads alone take up 320 pages. It is easier for people to search for a property online rather than go through all the print pages," she says. Additionally web searches can be narrowed to obtain most relevant results.
"We are now focusing our energy online in an effort to reduce the amount of paper that is being used to print the publications."
Mohnani says that it has been a challenge to launch and stabilise each product. "It's always an uphill task to start something new but we have a fantastic team and all my present managers have been with us for more than 15 years. So there is a good synergy among us."
Though Mohnani admits to feeling a slight threat whenever a competitor enters the market, she says the key to remain on top is customer relations. "At the end of the day, customer service is the name of the game."
Another major concern for a newspaper in a booming country is coping with the huge number of advertisements that come in, she says. "The sheer volume of content and distribution leads to high pressure. But at the end of the day, we see it through. There are times when we have to drop as much as 40 pages of advertisements due to lack of space. It hurts when we have to refuse business from clients because we are refusing revenue and also potentially upsetting clients. You would think selling is difficult, but un-selling is worse."
Despite the success of classifieds, Mohnani doesn't see it as an excuse to relax. "When you are at the top, there is always a danger of slipping down. So we have to be constantly on our toes to continue being successful and maintain our leadership.
"Internationally, as a daily classified, there is nothing I've seen that comes close to where we are today. At conferences, international newspapers ask for a copy of our classifieds pages as a sample to improve their copies. The 400-plus classifieds we produce daily is a weekend classifieds for a couple of newspapers in the US, and that's the closest it has come."
And there is no looking back as Mohnani says, "We've made it."
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