Ad operations at Sonoma Media in California's North Bay area will be a whole lot slicker following implementation of Lineup's Adpoint management system.

Founded in 2011, SMI is dedicated to "preserving quality local journalism in the North Bay area".

Among multiple publications is the top-selling The Press Democrat - a winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting - Sonoma Magazine, the North Bay Business Journal, Petaluma Argus Courier and the Sonoma Index-Tribune.

The company had been looking for a media sales solution to replace antiquated booking and billing systems for retail, classified and digital advertising and support new sales channels and the overall advertising sales process.

Lineup Systems had the advantage of being both a provider of solutions and an integrator of other solutions. Classified advertising director and project leader Dennis Sheely said The Press Democrat had been using "a smorgasbord of different vendors" for different parts of the sales and publishing process, inherited from the days of when it was part of the New York Times and Halifax Media Group. With Adpoint, they will be replacing three systems, while integrating with a dozen existing systems including customer self-service, print copy, page planning and other functions.

"With Adpoint we'll be able to identify market share opportunities and with their tools our employees can consult and convert them into client relationships," Sheely said.