Newspaper Advertising Still a Good Bet

When the economy starts to slip and revenues go down, business owners start looking for ways to cut costs. Unfortunately, along with layoffs and reductions in job perks like free donuts in the break room, one casualty is often the marketing budget. This kind of thinking is short-sighted, to say the least.

Keeping your name in front of potential clients is the only way to keep revenue streams running and bring in new business. In the current economy, just maintaining the status quo will only postpone the eventual demise of a company.

Each year, a business loses approximately 20 percent of its client base. That means that a sales team needs to work that much harder just to maintain the current level of income.

To exceed that revenue and actually grow, additional effort is required. Growth requires consumer confidence - something lacking in today's market. A business that advertises regularly in a given market over a long period of time generates a level of that confidence, regardless of how superficial it might seem.

Print, online and broadcast media are all experiencing a loss of revenue thanks, in part, to businesses who are cutting back on their advertising budgets. Because of this market shift, a careful shopper can wrangle some great deals on advertising that may have previously been out of financial reach.

Television and radio advertising may reach more people in some cases, but the ads are short, loud and then gone. With a newspaper or online publication, the advertisement remains on the page for as long as the consumer wants to look at it. The ad stays in the hands of the consumer for days and the reader can refer back to the ad as often as he or she wishes without great effort.

Advertisers need to avoid one major mistake, however - single-mindedness. A business person who purchases a single ad to run just one or two times may just as well drive through a residential neighborhood yelling his message from the car window while throwing dollar bills into the street.

For any advertisement to be effective, it must be repeated ... and repeated again ... and repeated again. Why? Because consumers have short memories and they don't care.

It's true. The sad truth about consumer decisions is that they really don't care. Choosing which restaurant to eat in or which grocery store from which to buy a loaf of bread or carton of milk are really not major decisions.

The consumer is flooded with advertising for restaurants and grocery stores but, when the time comes to pick, all they are really going to remember is the one they have seen most often. As an advertiser, repetition is one way to use this kind of apathy to your advantage.

For best results, an ad should appear in the same paper, in relatively the same spot over the course of several weeks before you see a solid return on your investment and, indeed, revenue growth. Still not convinced?

I would say that you are reading my column right now for one of two reasons. You either stumbled on it today while doing some bathroom reading (where my material often makes the most sense), or you knew it was on this page, on this day, every week.

So, when an advertising salesperson says that you need to buy more than one spot, they're not just trying to increase their commission. They are trying to make your marketing plan successful. If they can help you do that, everyone wins - the sales person, the newspaper and, most importantly, your bottom line.

Of course, the message is as important as the placement. Despite popular ideology, there is no way to generate a "need to buy" in the consumer's mind. You can, however, convince them that yours is the best choice with only a few words of validation.

Generally, people remember what are known as "tag lines" for service businesses. A tag line with a message validating the product's claims to be the best on the market will usually stick with the consumer longest. For example, Maxwell House Coffee was always, "good to the last drop," whether it was true or not.

In fact, this whole discussion may seem a bit self-serving. From the point of view of a business owner, however, newspaper advertising has never been more worthwhile. Oh, by the way, the publishers did NOT ask me to write this - but now they owe me big time!

Columnist Gery L. Deer is available as a keynote speaker. For information call (937) 902-4857 or online www.gerydeer.com.