Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Great question for starting a lively debate. The best location for any message is simply to be where your target audience is. An example of this is the placement of a golfing products ads in the sports section of the daily news. Below are a few other handy suggestions.

One quick way to determine the best placement is to ask the media publisher. They should work with you to have your ad placed in the best possible location so that you will get great results and spend more of your advertising dollars with them. They know their audience better than anyone. They should also have subscriber profiles and readership studies for you to review.

Another good method is to look at what your competitors are doing. Ever notice how a Burger King opens up close to a McDonalds? This is because burger buyers are already headed to McDonalds so why not catch them on the way and present an alternative. So, if a competitor has a regular ad on specific day and in a specific placement, go for the same day and as close to them as possible. In some cities you will see this type of clustering of ads on specific days and in specific sections.

A final method is to stake out your own territory and then be consistent, but this takes a big budget. Fry's does this in my local paper (Chicago Tribune) so I always know when and where to find their ad.

Good luck!

I agree in placing ads where your target audience is. If you have a sports-related product, look to the sports section. If you think it may also be attractive to a business audience, consider alternate sections/days.

On thing to remember about ads: it has to stand out! Nine times out of ten, I bypass an ad with lots of copy. If there's a graphic that screams "look at me," I will. That should be supported by brief, attention-grabbing copy. Tiffany's does this well in the Wall Street Journal each day. Whether it's one or more ads (the jeweler often runs more than one ad per day), it maintains a simple attractive design with few words.

I'm not a huge fun of ads, but if you can afford to place a series of consistent, creative and quickly informative ads, they can work.

First, "an ad" - if you mean you are going to place just one ad - one day - than don't bother. Print ads - in particular, newspaper - for much else than restaurants with coupons don't work spontaneously. But, I'll assume your question is more like, "If I were going to develop a marketing plan campaign for my service business and I want to include newspaper advertisement as one of the activities, in which section should the ad be placed and should if be multiple ads or just one?

This depends on your service. If you are a roofer, landscaper, plumber, tree service, painter, contractor, etc, then most people look through the want ads first. A professionally designed want-ad would be beneficial to you. Multiples would be even better - more chance they will see it. Make the ad "special" by making it longer, include graphic symbols, as available from your newspaper, etc. Make it stand out, but not "stupid looking." Maintain a professional look.

If you are a B to B service - health insurance, consultant, IT, telecom, printer, etc, obviously, the business section is best. If you are a B to C business - photographer, caterer, interior decorator, etc, then the community section or arts section is the place.

The key here is place the ad in the section where your target client spends most of his/her time in the newspaper. If you want to know what this is - ask your clients!

The other factor in this is knowing what the purpose of your ad. Are you placing an ad for "immediate business" or for brand recognition? Immediate business - you'll use some promotion - 50% off, BOGO, free to new customers, etc. Place an ad in the section your target client goes first. Even if it's the comics! If you are after brand recognition, place the ad where it fits your brand best. For brand recognition, ads coupled with press releases work well.

Multiple versus one - it's a numbers game. The more times you are present, the higher probability they will see you. the more times they see you, the higher the probability of action. The more times they see you, the more they will recognize you.

Having a marketing plan that stacks marketing actions versus scattered presence everywhere is best. If you have a website, direct your newspaper ad to have them check out your website (This would be the "call to action" - go to my website because you will get a coupon!) If you do a direct mail campaign, reference your newspaper ad, which references your website. Small actions like these are easier to get a prospect to do versus trying to get them to buy immediately.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

Dear Bob,

The best kind of newspaper advertising is not advertising at all:
it's editorial. When any of us looks at an ad, normally, the ad LOOKS like an ad.

Our eyes send information to our brain, our brain scans its memories and finds nothing to connect to the stimulus of the ad
(if it's stimulating, which most ads aren't) if it finds nothing that's
at all interesting or relevant, the message is largely ignored.

To NOT be ignored, the ad in question needs to BELLOW some major difference. It needs to TELEGRAPH some astonishing point of attention, attraction, or significance that is simply way more important or appealing than any other point of visual stimuli on that page at that moment.

In the same way that no one "reads" Playboy magazine for the articles, no one reads newspapers to look at the ads. Readers want to READ, and what better material to read than text that's actually INTERESTING?

If you're advertising a service in a newspaper, the best location is any location that looks like news, that looks like something worthy of the reader's time and attention because it imparts some vital piece of information, or some element of "Well! I didn't know THAT!"

What's probably needed here is not what appears to be an ad at all but a voice of authority, a tone of trust. If you can't get the editors to work with you and either give you a regular column or byline, make your ads LOOK like part of the paper; make your ad look as if it's supposed to be there.

Give it a compelling headline. Use subheads. Use pictures. Give those pictures captions and have those captions tell a story or let them refer to some element IN your main body copy so as to pull your reader in.

Never opt for just one message or just one ad. One of anything in marketing is a bad thing.

In order to thrive and grow, relationships need frequency and consistency.

To build relationships you need to create trust over time. You've got to get people to feel they know you and like you. And you've got to get people to believe your opinion and trust your word.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Bob,

First thing I should have asked: What were the results of the ads? If the business doesn't know (because they didn't' track) - this is one of the first things to take care of! Put systems in place to track. Second, I reiterate: If you want to know what your customers think and how they are affected by content - ASK THEM! A little data goes a long way.

I agree, HVAC in the business section is not of value for "immediate response" by consumers. If the company's target audience, however, is business - then it's a great space. However, the content should be narrowed to what's important to business owners.

If the purpose is "immediate response" for consumers, other sections are better. Narrowing the message is important too. And narrowing their whole business focus is important! They CAN'T do everything for everyone equally best! Many companies have a "scarcity" mentality - we have to take EVERY scrap of business that comes our way" versus an "abundance mentality" - there are LOTS of customers out there and it's not the worst thing for us to reject those that aren't right for our business. With an abundance mentality, the business can focus on what they are truly good at and be the best in that area. This will result in having a large share of a smaller market segment versus a little in several market segments. They will be able to charge more versus "be the lowest bidder" and even if their sales are a little lower, the profits are higher. Of course, what this requires is that they have core competencies and use them to satisfy customer needs better than their competitors. This takes investment by the company to get here. And it requires focus. With this in mind, then the message will be focused versus having a ton of different messages where your brand is diluted.

By, hey, it could be that customers value a "one-stop shop" more than an absolute expert at any one of the services. Again, asking them is required to understand this. If customers want a one-stop shop, then the messages hit this point.

This is a hard thing for most business owners to swallow, however. But, in pushing this point, it actually puts you up on the average marketer - who just wants to bill hours in creative services versus make the business more successful. Same thing for us marketers: We have to have an abundance mentality. Those customers who just want to place ads willy nilly - give them the number of the newspaper. If they want marketing services that make a difference in their business, then we're the guys!

Wayde

I have first-hand experience in a very similar business. We advertised in newspapers, direct mail (group mailings), and inserts. And we tracked responses based on the copy, offer, day of the week. We also tracked placement within the newspaper for our newspaper ads.

I would not presume to extrapolate my results to anywhere else, and, of course, my copy was unique to my business. What we learned, however, is that front section and weather pages worked best for us. We advertised 3-5 days a week ongoing, usually with just one ad each day. Occasionally the paper would give us a great deal to take two spots on the same day, and we'd usually see better results from that, but not to where we'd pay full rate for both if there were no special deal.

The most important thing is to track results carefully, and to test various offers and copy approaches.

FWIW, group mailings worked best for us, followed by newspapers. Both paid out quickly, and we maintained a regular schedule for months on end.

Hope this helps.