Top 5 Reasons to Advertise in Newspapers

A hundred years ago if you wanted to advertise to a mass audience you had really just one choice, newspapers. Every city had them, everybody read them. They were the only real source for news and, rightly or wrongly, they had tremendous influence over policy makers and businesses. Even as recently as 1950, newspapers reached over 120% of the households in America (remember, most cities had multiple newspapers). While this reach has declined over the last several decades, newspapers still reach, on average, 40% of the households in a given metropolitan area.

No other medium comes close to matching the penetration into the population that newspapers do. What about television? Everyone watches TV, right? While it's true that most households in the country have TVs, the medium is so fragmented that to reach a high number of people, you have to spend an inordinate amount of money to do so. The reach of television is comparatively low because of this fragmentation.

But aren't newspapers dying? You just mentioned in the first paragraph how their reach has gone from 120% in the 1950s to 40% today. Why should I spend my valuable advertising dollars in a dying medium? The "dying" newspaper is a myth. When looked at as a whole, newspapers are far from dying, especially when you look at their total number of readers. More than three out of four respondents in a Scarborough Research survey read a newspaper or visited a newspaper website in an average week.

When print and web readers are combined, the number of people reached by newspapers is staggering. Before you discount the web reader, you should know that in most cases the duplication level between print and web readers is very low, between 10-15%. In other words, both the print and web readers represent two distinct, mostly unduplicated, audiences, both reading the content the newspaper is creating.

So, let's get started with the Top 5 Reasons to Advertise in Newspapers:

1. Reach - No other advertising vehicle reaches as many people in your market as newspaper. To match the reach numbers of newspaper in TV or radio, you would have to spend insane amounts of money. That's not to say that TV and radio advertising are worthless; they indeed have places in your media mix, but they generally work better as complements to your overall advertising plan.

2. Quality - Generally speaking, your best prospects are newspaper readers. The average consumer of newspaper content is more educated, has higher income, works in professional/managerial occupations, and owns their home. These demographics increase when looking at newspaper website readers. The bottom line with newspaper readers is that they have the money to spend on your product or service.

3. Welcomed Into the Home - This is a subtle, yet important point. People subscribe to the paper, they pay for it. They invite it into their home. And since people value what they pay for, they read it. They read the news and they read the ads. Commercials on TV and radio can often be an intrusion or distraction. Ads in the newspaper are not annoying.

4. Targeting - Most every newspaper, large or small, has a whole suite of products to offer its advertisers. From the core product to special sections and pages, from inserts to geo- and demo-targeted products, newspapers offer something for everyone. Inserts can usually be targeted to particular ZIP codes or neighborhoods, and special sections typically revolve around a certain demographic or event.

5. Value - In most cases, the cost per thousand (CPM) of newspaper advertising is far below that of TV and radio. Even the most budget-conscious advertiser can usually find an advertising plan in the newspaper that will help him or her get their marketing message out to the maximum number of people. Most newspapers offer special packages or contracts to bring the rate down, making it even more affordable.

Newspaper advertising is one of the most results-oriented mediums, and can be effective for both direct response advertising and branding. As with any other media, there are right ways and wrong ways to utilize the medium, and I will discuss those in later posts.

Full disclosure, I have worked in the newspaper industry for more than twenty years as an advertising sales executive. Before that, however, I worked as a media buyer for a regional restaurant chain. That's where I saw my dollars at work in newspaper. We tried radio, TV, billboard, and newspapers. Hands down, newspaper ads got the best response.

Advertising on Radio - Pros & Cons

Photo: MConnors, Morguefile.com

Should you consider radio as part of your marketing plans? Absolutely! It can be a vital part of any media mix and can be highly effective when done correctly. Radio is a medium that is enjoyed by practically everyone in the population at one time or another during the day, at home, at work, and in the car. Moreover, there is a wide variety of program formats available that will allow you to target your audience with great precision.

There are over 50 recognized radio format profiles, ranging from Adult Contemporary and Oldies to Urban Contemporary and Classic Rock. This wide spectrum of formats is both an advantage of radio and a potential pitfall. The advantage, as mentioned, is that you can select the format to advertise on based on who you're trying to reach.

An Oldies station will presumably attract Baby Boomers and if your primary customer is made up of that segment of the population, you should definitely look at advertising on that station. In an earlier blog post titled "Which Half", I discussed how important it is to know your primary customer and match up the media that best fit that target.

The first step to selecting which radio stations to advertise on is knowing which stations in your area target the audience you're trying to reach. A check of the website Radio-Locator will show each station in your city by format. You may not have the budget to advertise on all the stations in your chosen format (nor should you), especially if it's a broad-reaching format like Adult Contemporary, so you need to be selective. How to decide? You need to view the Arbitron ratings of each station you're considering.

A good objective source is StationRatings.com, but before you dive in you should probably get a primer on what some of the terms mean. Check out this page from the Radio Research Consortium for a good glossary.

Before we get too far into the mechanics of buying radio (which will come in a later blog post), let's pull back a bit and examine some of the possible cautions you should consider. All those formats mentioned earlier allow you to target your customer very precisely, but that means that as a "reach" vehicle, radio performs very poorly because the overall audience is so fragmented. Listeners are divided among many formats and stations.

To compensate for the lack of reach (defined as the number of potential customers it is possible to reach through an advertising campaign), a radio advertiser must increase the frequency of ads. Fortunately, radio spots are usually priced relatively low per unit compared to other forms of advertising, but how many of those spots will it take to reach a sufficient number of people in your target?

In addition, radio listeners are spread out over the course of the day (called "Dayparts" - Morning drive, mid-day, afternoon drive, evening, and overnight), making your target even more diluted.

What radio excels at is creating an emotional appeal for an item or service. Through its use of music, voice over, sound effects, etc. listeners can become emotionally invested in your product or company. Because of this, it's not advisable to pack your commercials with too much factual information. Too much detail will be tuned out by the listener. Also, a 15- or 30-second spot is too fleeting for the person to retain much of the information.

This is where frequency comes in - the more spots run, the more the message will be remembered. However, be careful about over-saturating the airwaves with your spot. No matter how clever or funny or heartwarming your ad, if it's on too frequently or for too long, you risk alienating your prospective customers.

Consider an ad "flight" where the spot runs for a couple weeks, then is off for a couple weeks, then back on. Studies have shown that this sort of schedule results in higher recall than a constant barrage of ads.

Two other things to consider...radio inventory is limited. Unlike advertising in a newspaper or magazine where they can always print more pages, radio sells time and they can't create more time to accommodate more ads. So what happens when the inventory becomes more limited? The price of the spots goes up. The desirable time slots like morning drive and afternoon drive may even be sold out entirely.

Finally, be aware of the increased use of MP3 players and satellite radio, which both reduce the listenership of commercial radio and the overall reach of your ads.

Radio is an excellent complementary medium for most any ad campaign, and can generate buzz and hype about a business or product. When matched up to your target customer, and with the proper creative (which the radio station can help you with), and placed on the appropriate dayparts, you can definitely see a return on your investment.

Marketing Using Social Media

Leverage "Likes" to your Facebook
page to help grow your business.

Unless you've been living in the proverbial cave, you know that social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has virtually exploded in popularity in just the last couple years. Facebook alone, as of this writing, is closing in on a billion users. That's one in every seven people on the planet using Facebook. It's no secret that businesses are using Facebook and other social media to reach prospective customers. If you have a Facebook account, you probably have "Liked" a business or two to learn of specials they're offering, or new products, or to interact with other customers.

So as a small business, how can you leverage the power of social media in your marketing? This post will talk specifically about Facebook, and later articles will discuss Twitter and others. We're not going to go into a lot of detail here, more of just an overview, but hopefully it will get the wheels turning for you and generate some good ideas.

First, do you - as a small business - really need a Facebook page? You may be thinking, I've already invested a lot of money and time in getting my website off the ground, why do I need Facebook? Well, a website is definitely a necessity. Even if you don't engage in e-commerce, think of your company's website as an online brochure. Your website tells the story of your business, its history, mission statement, your products and services, etc. And, it probably doesn't change much.

Facebook, however, allows you to have another major presence online and the ability to actively engage your customers and potential customers. Think about how powerful that is! When folks "Like" your business page, you can reach out to them on a very personal level, having a conversation with them one-on-one.

What are some of the possibilities with this level of engagement? You can run contests, you can offer specials to only those people who have "Liked" your page, you can organize group activities at your place of business, you can introduce new products to your very own "focus group", you can solicit feedback...the possibilities are almost limitless.

Take advantage of the network that you can tap into from your "Likes". If you have just 50 "Likes", and each one of those people has just 50 friends, that's potentially 2,500 people you can touch. Every additional "Like" you receive increases your network exponentially.

So how do you get folks to "Like" your page? Market your page like anything else. Just like your website URL is in every piece of promotional material you have out there, from business cards, to POS signage, to advertisements, your Facebook page should be promoted just as much.

However - and this is big - it's not enough to just urge people to "Like" you on Facebook. Several weeks ago I drove past a tire store in my neighborhood and noticed on their marquee, it said "Like Us On Facebook". My first reaction was, "Why?" As a consumer, I'm thinking, "What's in it for me?" Why should I "Like" them on Facebook, what am I going to get out of it.

They should have offered some sort of incentive: "Like Us On Facebook - Get The 4th Tire Free". OK, there's an incentive, especially if I need tires. Or: "Like Us On Facebook - Half Price Oil Change".

Another promotion I've seen used by restaurants is offering a free drink when you check in on Facebook. The cost of a soda is minimal, but all the user's friends see that they've checked in at a particular restaurant, thereby spreading the word.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in how to use social media in your marketing. We'll revisit this topic many times in the future, but feel free to leave a comment if you have a good idea on how you're using Facebook.

One-Product Website Marketing

A good friend of mine, Scott Rauber - a veritable marketing genius - turned me on to the idea of creating a one-product niche website. He has used them to market his promotional advertising business over the years with remarkable success. In his business, he literally has tens of thousands of products at his disposal to put a client's logo on but rather than create a website that contains tens of thousands of pages he focused his first website on a single product. Not even a type of product, but one specific product.

One-product websites can
result in top search results
for your product.

It's kind of counter-intuitive, especially when you may offer hundreds, or thousands, of different products. Why not create a website that includes all the items you have for sale? That way when a potential client comes to your site, he or she can browse through your hundreds of pages and decide on what best fits their needs.

Well, it sounds good in theory, and probably does work quite well if you're a Best Buy or Office Depot. But what if you're not that large and don't have all those branding messages out there? Scott's method has you picking one product and pushing it hard, creating a website around it and essentially cornering the market in search terms around it.

Now this blog is aimed primarily at small businesses, brick & mortar operations with a single location. Scott's one-product website marketing ideas are designed for online businesses, but there's no reason why you can't adapt them for a traditional storefront operation, or even perhaps a service-oriented business located in a reasonably large geographic area.

In Scott's business, clients find his websites through search, they contact him to place the order, he processes it and the factory sends it out. But if you're a small retailer, this can still work, especially if you have a specialty product that you ship.

Several years ago my wife and I were on vacation in small touristy town on the east coast of Florida when we came across a gift shop that also made their own soaps. This retailer crafted specially scented soaps on the premises and sold them in their store front, and they also did mail order. On their business card they naturally had the name of their store and the store's website which was something like "SallysBoutique.com". The website featured many of the products that they carried, which is fine. But I think Sally would have done quite well with a one-product website selling just the soaps, maybe even just a particular kind of soap.

This is where Scott's ideas and advice are invaluable. I followed his lead recently and created my own one-product site for an online business and it's starting to bear fruit. Scott has assembled his proven methods and recommendations into an e-book, One Product Website - The Art of Generating Leads & Sales Through Niche Search Selling. It's available at his own one-product website located here.

Sometimes when you're a brick & mortar retailer, you have to think outside the box a little. Of course, you should develop a website that reflects your store as a whole, but you should also consider building a website around a certain product and dominate the search results for that item. Scott will show you how in his book clearly and minus the pipe dreams. Simply put, his stuff works.

Effective Use of Billboards

An example of an effective billboard:
Bright colors, strong graphic,
minimal copy
(Click to enlarge)

Billboards can be an effective advertising tool when used correctly. There are so many ways to use them incorrectly, however, and that equates to wasted marketing dollars. Billboards, also known as outdoor advertising, should be used to deliver a single, high-impact message in a short time period. That time period is typically only five or six seconds, so nothing in the design or copy can be wasted.

Billboards usually come in standard sizes, ranging from 5' x 11' to 20' x 60' and can be printed in either one large vinyl graphic on a single sheet, or on several panels. Placement of the sign and its design are the critical elements of how successful - or not - a billboard can be.

Where a sign is placed and how much traffic it receives are obvious factors and should be discussed with the outdoor advertising company. A directional sign that indicates the location of the store should, of course, be located within a short distance of the shop, but billboards can also be used to build anticipation along major thoroughfares or highways many miles away from the actual destination.

Anyone familiar with the "See Rock City" or "South of the Border" billboards along interstates in Tennessee and the I-95 corridor will be familiar with this strategy.

As far as billboard design goes, keep elements to three or less. Wording should be limited to three or four clear words, with ten at the very most. Motorists will not be able to remember details - like phone numbers  or long URL's - as they're driving past at highway speeds. Even urban billboards are competing with a lot of other distractions and elements should be kept to a minimum.

Make sure the colors are bold and high in contrast. Subtle images and colors that may work well in, say, a magazine ad will not work at all in billboard design. Keep the design simple!

Basically, billboards should be used for one of two purposes - branding and directional. The directional sign gives the name of the business or logo, maybe a photo or graphic depicting what it sells, company slogan, and some sort of quick direction like, "Turn right at next signal, on left half mile".

A branding sign contains even less information - typically just the name of the company and the logo and a catchy slogan or headline. Branding billboards are usually utilized by large, national companies with equally large marketing budgets. Smaller companies can still use them, but usually couple them with directional designs.

That headline shouldn't be overlooked. This is your chance to tell your prospective customer what your product, service, or store will do for them. Be creative, and sell the benefit of your product, not just the feature. I'll devote a later blog post to features and benefits but, in general, a benefit answers the question, "What's in it for me?".

Whether you're employing a directional or branding billboard, remember to keep it simple. Yes, I'm saying it again, because it's critical. A billboard cannot be treated the same as a newspaper, magazine, or direct mail advertising. With a print ad, you can (within reason) fill up the space with the important information about your product or service. A billboard does not afford you the same luxury.

As with any advertising medium, a good media mix extends your reach into the market, maximizing the number of people receiving your marketing message. Billboards can be an effective complement to practically any ad campaign.

The ROI of Blogging

A couple posts ago I talked about how blogging can play an important role in your marketing plans. A website for your small business is critical, of course, but social media - of which blogging is a part - is just as crucial. Remember, by blogging you position yourself as the expert in your field. Blogs help you disseminate information to the public (and the search engines) which ultimately leads folks back to your website where you hopefully convert them into leads or sales.

That all sounds great in theory, but are there actual numbers to support that? In fact there are! I came across the blog for Kuno Creative out of Ohio and an article by its president, Chris Knipper, titled "How Much Does it Cost a Company to Stop Blogging - ROI Revealed". In it, Knipper points to a medical practice that was blogging consistently for six months and, after a merger, quit for six months, then started blogging again.

The numbers were dramatic. Traffic, leads generated, converted, and overall ROI were all impacted by the blogging hiatus. I won't spend any more time summarizing Knipper's article, but I urge you to follow the above link to it and read it for yourself.

I can't imagine a better argument for incorporating blogging into your marketing plans.

Vertical Versus Horizontal Advertising

Advertising is advertising, right? Well, advertising is decidedly not "one size fits all." When you're planning your advertising buy, you should look at what you want to accomplish with it. Is this a long-term branding campaign to raise awareness of your business in the marketplace? Or are you having a big event like a sale coming up and want to bring as many people as possible into your store in a short amount of time?

If your objective is more long-term in nature, then you'll be utilizing a horizontal ad campaign. The goal of the horizontal campaign is to keep your name at the top of the consumer's mind so when they're ready to buy the particular good or service that you offer, they'll think of you and not your competitor. See my earlier post on the "thin market concept" for more details on this.

A horizontal ad campaign is characterized by small ads in the newspaper run several times a week over a long period of time. There is typically not price points or sale items listed in the ad. Your logo, tagline or slogan, a brief description of your products or services, and contact information is all that is necessary. Think of it as a billboard in the newspaper. The benefit comes from long term frequency.

This can also be accomplished by running short commercials on the radio or TV. By buying the shortest time period available, some as low as 10 seconds, but concentrating on long term frequency, you'll build that awareness over time.

One thing to remember with horizontal ad campaigns, you will not see immediate results. This is all about branding and building awareness in the marketplace for your company. The results you see will build over time.

Sales and other events call
for vertical ad campaigns.
Photo by Kevin Rosseel
Morguefile.com

If, however, you are holding a big sale or grand opening event, then a vertical ad campaign is what you want to utilize. Rather than spreading your advertising over six months or a year as in a horizontal ad campaign, your advertising will be condensed into a one or two week period. Here, you're not focusing on the long term, but reaching as many people as often as possible during the campaign.

Typically newspapers have the largest penetration into the marketplace, so load up on large ads, in color if possible, to garner the most attention from potential consumers. In contrast to the minimal amount of information in the horizontal campaign ads, vertical campaign ads will emphasize price, or the event itself. Include features and benefits of your products (benefits answer the consumer's question, "What's in it for me?).

Vertical campaign commercials on TV or radio take full advantage of the longer time frames, like 30 seconds and 60 seconds, and utilize the same components of similar newspaper ads.

When trying to reach as many people as possible, consider a "media mix" of newspapers, electronic, and other media. More on a healthy media mix in a later post.

Good luck with your next advertising campaign, whether it's horizontal or vertical.