Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

It depends on who your target audience is and what you want them to do. Some products/services lend themselves to visual media, others don't. Some almost demand action/motion, some don't. Some have a specific call to action, others don't.

In every case, the quality/impact of the advertising message itself is more important than the medium or the spending level. If you have great copy that works well in a television commercial, don't change it. Don't look for other media just for variety. Finding copy that works (in any medium) is the key to successful advertising. If you have that, why would you mess with the media selections or the copy itself? Are you feeling like it might be better? Well, it might also be worse. Then what?

I completley agree with mgoodman, you need to identify your target market, and then decide what media works best. A leaflet drop might deliver more, and better quality results that a tv campaign, a billboard in the right place might be a much better use of your marketing dollar than a newspaper insert.
Think about where your targets are when they see your advertising, the time of day they see it, the situation they are in.

An example of this is we work for a petrol retailer who have a network of sites with a convenience store and a café environment on site, we identified the target market, and decided radio, outdoor (sites near to store) & local press (to target local people using the convience store) were the ideal mix.

Radio has worked very well for us, (because you can target customers in their cars), with a mixture of advertising and sponsorship of traffic reports reinforcing our message.

The message that you communicate needs to be consistent, but also tailored for your medium. For instance our radio campaign created interest, awareness & desire, while a billboard could give specific directions to a particular site.

Print media still works, if you have a specific target market who consistently reads a particular newspaper, magazine or trade journal. The difficulties will arise out of deciding on and executing an effective ad. If you’re a local nonprofit, local papers will usually give you a reduced rate for insertions, but they have a bottom line as well.

Have you thought of joining forces with another nonprofit to co-publish? This gets you a double bang for your ad buck. I've found that this works best if there's a symbiotic relationship between the two organizations. Also, it depends on what result you're looking for. Is it additional donations or more members? Do you have an annual event which could be advertised at the same time? There are also smaller publications which will give you a reduced rate if you also have an informational article to go with it.