Kickstart Marketing

Press Marketing

The local press can be a fabulous way of reaching your market if you have a domestic service or are targeting a well defined geographical area. Different papers have different readership profiles. If you are based in an area where there is lots of political turmoil, your paper will probably have a strong local readership. If your local paper has a large colour real estate section, then you may pick up bonus readers who are contemplating a move into your area. In metropolitan markets you may find there are less business people reading local papers, so they are not as effective for business to business products and services. In regional areas they may be the major source of information on local business issues, so are ideal for business to business marketing. Local press advertising in smaller communities can also give you greater access to publicity.

Before you advertise, make sure you read your local paper from cover to cover to get a feel for its approach. There are two main ways you can advertise in the local paper:

Display advertisements are usually placed in the early pages of the paper or in a category section such as Homewares. Display ads also appear in special advertising supplements that promote an event or a theme such as a bridal fair or renovation special. As the name suggests, display advertisements can include photographs or artwork and usually range in size from a couple of columns to a quarter or half page.

Classified advertising appears in the back of the paper and is usually used for trade advertising. These ads are smaller and rely on a few lines of wording to attract the reader's attention.

Try to choose the right type of advertising for your product and potential client. If you are a plumber, don't bother with display ads if readers automatically head straight for the classified section when they have a blocked sink. A fashion boutique will need a display ad to show pictures of their stock or promote their benefits. Monitor the response of your advertising by asking customers how they found out about your business. Don't try and test response with a 'mention this advertisement for a free whatever' approach. Unless the offer is absolutely amazing, most people won't go to the trouble of mentioning the ad as they don't want to appear to be stingy or cheap. It is also an expensive way to conduct market research when you consider the cost of the advertisement.

Tricks of the Trade

Don't forget to change the copy or wording in your advertisement on a regular basis. Local papers don't always promote this advantage, but it is an excellent way of making your ad stand out from the usual. Make sure you plan for copy changes and don't just change the copy on a whim. Give the paper plenty of notice so they can organise the change. Test different benefits to see which works best. If the phone suddenly starts ringing after a new ad appears, let it run and monitor response rates. Track the results of your press marketing to make sure it is effective. Even an inexpensive classified ad can cost a lot of money if it runs for months or years.

Real Life

While talking about press advertising in a seminar one day, one gentleman who ran a motor workshop stood up and said he had been running press advertising for five years. When asked if it worked, he said he hadn't a clue. We calculated how much he had spent and worked out he could have taken a trip to Bali on the advertising dollars he had spent.

More Kickstart Marketing Extracts:
The Marketing Toolkit Introduction | Mainstream Marketing | Press

 

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