Brand Building in Traditional Media (Newspapers)

Advertising in the media

[engine]

It's always worth remembering that there are alternative methods of getting your brand established other than pure SEM.

Here are some ideas for newspaper advertising.

Don't use local paper advertising as a way of generating enquiries. If you do, you are likely to be disappointed. Do use it to create and consolidate branding, and to raise the profile.

Don't take one ad, it is unlikely to work effectively, but consider a regular series.

Be consistent in the advert's message and design, and try to get fixed positioning in the paper throughout the series. If the ad appears in different places, the regular readers won't get to know the brand.

Make sure you have a call to action, too. Get the reader to do something: phone, log on, etc.

Give them a reason to take the action: freebee to the first x number of enquiries, discounts, or free subscription. Also, things that say, save money, improve your lifestyle, discover a better whatever, are powerful hooks.

When it comes to the media, look closely at the circulation and audience type (age group, predominantly male/female, etc.).

Make sure it is the type of audience you want to target.

Check to see if it is a free paper, a paid paper, a subscription only paper?

With free papers, assume about 10% of the circulation figure are likely to read it. This figure increases significantly with paid papers and subscription papers.

Check to see if it's an audited circulation paper: BPA/ABC are the auditors. If they are audited it's a way of confirming the circulation claimed is not a total made up figure.

You can get all this by asking the paper for a media pack.

[mack]

excelent advice, thanks

Mack.

[rogerd]

Newspaper advertising tends to be quite expensive, IMO. They cater to a captive group of advertisers (mostly local merchants who have no other print advertising options). Making any kind of direct response ad pay off is very tough. Sometimes secondary newspapers, like "shoppers" (free distribution, mostly ads & classifieds) are cheaper.

One problem for newspapers is longevity. As a long term direct marketer, I've found that most advertising campaigns generate a response curve of a rapid rise, a peak, and then a slower decline. Needless to say, a daily newspaper has a very short "tail".

For promoting a website, particularly a specialized one, I'd check out magazines that relate to that specialty interest. Often, their rates for classified or small display ads are reasonable. They have much greater shelf life than newspapers, since many people keep them indefinitely or pass them along to others. In addition, if the magazines are topically related, you aren't paying for a lot of exposure to people who will never be potential visitors/customers.

[edited by: rogerd at 9:10 pm (utc) on Jan. 28, 2005]

[trillianjedi]

Great stuff Neil.

I would also add that it's worth asking for a "feature" if you're advertising with any publication, assuming your website has "something" that a journalist might make a story out of. This is more so with the smaller specialty publications Roger mentioned.

You can often threaten for it, i.e. "do the feature and I'll take the space".

TJ

[rj87uk]

What I think is important to building a brand is to have a catchy logo, theme something easy to remember.

If you get the readers thinking 'Ah... thats cool' then thats a big step for them to remember and even tell a friend about it!

An example would be; I saw this ad - it was a shaved Kiwi and a normal one when i saw it i thought it was really funny, it was about an electric shaver that could shave... anything.

[iamlost]

Excellent summary.

One thing I've noticed is that most people think newspaper ads as in eighth page or larger including mucho info "display-ads".

One of my friends with a thriving web design business has a superb ad campaign design, for any smaller local/regional targeted operation:

* First Week: display ad above the fold (variation of her detailed yellow page ad). Rather pricey.

* Second - Fourth Weeks: half a dozen 2-inch square contrasting colour ads each with her company name, website address, phone number, and one of the services she provides. Each ad at least two pages from the previous. Surprisingly inexpensive.

* Fifth Week: No Ads.

* Repeat. Of course by scheduling a one year campaign she gets additional discounts.

Those little ads are what people notice. Sort of like the running gag in a comedy routine that gets funnier each time - people start "noticing/looking for" subsequent ads after seeing the first. She gets a third of her new clients this way.