Student Welcome Pack part of job description for Springfield News-Leader position

The Springfield News-Leader may try to distance itself from Student Welcome Pack following its denouncement today by Missouri State University officials, but a job ad placed on the Gannett website indicates it is part of the newspaper's plan to reach niche audiences.

Student Welcome Pack sent materials to prospective college students across Missouri, while making it appear that it was connected to Missouri State University. In fact, the News-Leader promoted Welcome Pack in an article...without divulging the company's connection with Gannett, the News-Leader's parent company, and the News-Leader itself.

The package included a condom and an advertisement for an erotic business.

Recently, the News-Leader ran this help wanted ad on the Gannett website:

Niche Audience Sales Manager

News-Leader Media Group (Springfield, MO)
Details
Location: MO - Springfield Job Type: Sales
Management
Marketing
Base Pay: N/A Required Education: 4 Year Degree
Bonus: Required Experience: At least 3 year(s)
Other: Required Travel: Not Specified
Employee Type: Full-Time Employee Relocation Covered: Not Specified
Industry Newspaper, Printing - Publishing

Job ID:

Description
This position will have the opportunity to fully integrate specialized product initiatives for both print and online platforms. As the News-Leader continues to expand its footprint and reach within the Springfield DMA, this position will have direct impact on the News-Leader Media Group’s ability to grow revenue, add new accounts and provide creative solutions to meet our customer’s needs. Each of these initiatives serves a specific niche; geographic territory and/or target audience that enables the team to implement various strategies and tactics to achieve revenue goals. This person will report to the Advertising Director and will play an important role on our Advertising Management team.

· This position is responsible for developing new clients and meeting the needs of existing clients through the use of the following:

- Custom publications like Signature and MomsLikeMe.

- Special projects like the Student Welcome Pack and other targeted initiatives

- Online sales management of MomsLikeMe.com and Metromix.com

- Sales responsibility in the Ad Division for Key events like Taste of Home and Kids Camp

- Other initiatives to be determined as marketplace changes and new opportunities develop

· Develops contacts and relationships with customers, leads the sales team dedicated to each product and actively works with the Advertising Division to sell clients across multiple platforms.

· Establishes goals for each publication and achieves the sales goals of each assigned platform.

· Develops professional sales presentations based on clients’ needs and delivers the presentations in a timely manner.

· Works closely with Advertising Sales Managers to actively prospect new business and develop presentations for each of their teams while attending needs assessments and presentation calls with Niche AE’s and other members of the sales team.

· Maintains an active customer list of major accounts for each product and manages the responsibilities of sales for these accounts that are shared with the general sales team.

· Works with support departments to ensure deadlines are met and that the workflow is meeting expectations for clients and our company.