Hi,

I'm after some advice please.

I have recently been approached by a publishing company regarding advertising in the Sunday Express and The Sunday Star. They are offering my a credit card sized advert full colour, ?00 for the Express and ?50 for the star.

I run an online print website do you think that this could bring me new business, or will it be a waste of money as most of our business is done online.

I would love to know your views

Thanks

Lee
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Ask yourself this:

What geographical area does most of your business come from?

How do people normally find out about you?

Would you benefit from having your name seen many, many miles from Derby?

Do your competitors advertise nationally?

How much business does the ad have to generate to justify that ?50?

Are the people who read the Star on Sunday and Sunday Express the type who would be your customers?

Would you get a thrill from seeing your name in a national newspaper?
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I know if I had ?50 quid of marketing money going spare it wouldn't be spent on a small one off ad in a daily paper.

You could do soooo much more with ?50

So my vote goes to 'waste of money'.
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Thanks for that CKG, any suggestions if you don't mind me asking?
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I know if I had ?50 quid of marketing money going spare it wouldn't be spent on a small one off ad in a daily paper.

You could do soooo much more with ?50

So my vote goes to 'waste of money'.


Surely it depends on what type of business you run and if it can benefit from national exposure. I am in PR and I believe it offers greater value for money than advertising. But I am willing to accept that advertising works.

Lee, be warned that once you place an ad you will have other newspapers, radio stations and ad agencies wanting your business. But don't let that put you off.

Ultimately you are the only one who can decide if those newspapers are appropriate for your business and if ?50 is a lot to pay if there is no return.
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I am sure it is different for every type of business but I have experimented with all advertising and PR over the last 4 years and newspaper adverts were a complete waste of time and money.

Again I emphasis different business have different needs but I am sure you can put you cash and time to better use that will in turn drive a better ROI

From my testing the following has worked in order for me top 5 are ( remember different business have different needs)

1. Word of mouth from past clients
2. SEO
3. PPC
4. Film displayed on plasma screens at strategic locations
5. Networking with other businesses and setting up partnerships
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Well your coverage is much much greater. Many businesses advertise locally just because its cheaper, the fact is, its not. If you cost the circulation against the lineage/ad size then national is way cheaper. Can you serve a national demographic? If so then do it (providing you are really happy with the copy!)
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Most people seem to think newspaper advertising is a waste of money. On the one hand you'll reach alot of people without breaking the bank, on he other, how many of those will buy from you?

Your products are more likely to be purchased by business customers and not your average newspaper reader. On that basis I'd say dont do it.

If you want to try advertising in a newspaper, you might want to consider the B2B publications.

Hope you're closer to a decision.
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Thank you all for your comments. After reading what you guys have to say i think i'm NOT going to place an advert in these newspapers. I think spending the money on SEO will be of much more benefit to me.

Thank you all
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Hi,

Just posted an inroduction about myself on the relevant board and have spotted this thread which I thought I would comment on.

Basically, I work for 3 newspapers around York in the promotions department. Just as an example, If you had ?00 to spend, I would be able to run a competition for you lasting 2-3 weeks, editorial content, fron page headers, etc etc (see my post on the introduction board for more info!).

By offering say ?00 to the winning entry, we would offer you a vast amount of space and coverage as opposed to a usual advert. We could also offer a reader offer for you that allows other readers to use your services and increases footfall/hits at your store/website.

Just an idea but let me know if you might be interested.

Good luck

Rich
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Is it in the classifieds section or in the front half (ie Display Advertising)? If it's classifieds then Credit card size (especially if you're doing a one off) will no doubt be money down the drain. In order to make national paper ads work you need a large budget, which you would pass to the agency and then they would get you as much advertising as possible over X amount of time. People need to see you company several times normally before they'll start logging on / calling you.

For online companies, if you don't have a big budget then stick to online advertising - perhaps try yahoo search marketing as it's cheaper than google adwords and if you look around the search engines tapping things like free ?0 search marketing voucher, you'll get some free credit to start you off.
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I don't think the method of advertising really matters per se, but I think you do need to choose a medium that reaches your buyers when they are in the right frame of mind ie selecting partners or trying to find a new supplier.

I like SEO and PPC because if you get your search term right then you know you're getting closer to this magic moment. Someone searching for "printers" on google might be looking for a new printer for their PC but if they're not, they're probably looking for a service like yours.

It's just a hunch but I reckon it isn't the MD of a company that would pick up the phone and call you for a quote - probably more likely his PA, or the Mktg exec or manager etc etc. These people aren't spending their Sunday's worrying about the cost of their printing, if they are reading it they'll be looking at holidays or whatever.

So I'm glad you decided against it, I'd try something online and maybe a little unorthadox - have a look at your current clients and work out a segment that makes the buying decision (say PA's just for an example). Then ask your PA (or someone else's or find a forum to ask around) where they spend their time online.

I know for a fact that most PA's in London for example prefer The London Paper over the Evening Standard because of the Soduko (or however you spell that darned puzzle!) so if I was trying to hit them I might have a go at sponsoring the puzzle!
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Sorry I missed a paragraph, basically it said that if you're not getting the frame of mind right be sure you're getting at least the right decision maker and in large numbers - then you're more likely to hit a secion of the audience that have changing suppliers in mind...
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