Newspaper Advertising - I need an Education

[Ankesh]

The Basics of Newspaper Advertising

1. The most important part is the message. The ad itself. The words you use.

Because split testing is easier online, You could maybe test your ad versions online. And then go with the best one offline.

Usually, colour ads aren't worth the extra cost. So go with black and white. And increase your ad size instead of going with colours.

Use borders and spacing well - to make your ad stand out. A dotted coupon type border usually increases the readership and the response. But most newspapers will charge you extra for a border.

If you want to learn how to "write" good ads, I recommend buying Joe Sugarman's books. Especially Advertising Secrets of the Written Word.

(Not going into the writing part - because that will triple the size of this post.)

2. Target Audience.

Obviously, if your target audience is - say - only doctors - it doesn't make sense to advertise in the local newspaper. You should instead advertise in a trade journal for doctors.

Make sure your intended target audience reads the newspapers where you want to advertise. Or its just money down the drain.

3. Ad placement

The best - and also the most expensive place to advertise is on the front page of the newspaper. Then the last page.

But - even better than that is placing your ad next to "suitable" content. If you know an article is running about your industry - get your ad placed on the same page.

Or if your target audience loves sports - get your ad on the sports pages.

Case study: The Crossword magazine ran ads only on the pages with the crosswords on it. They had to pay extra for this placement. But they willingly spent the extra because they found that placing their ad anywhere else in the newspaper was never profitable for them.

4. Frequency.

Frequency has to do with your product selling cycle.

"If people buy your product once a week, don't expect your ads to return a profit during the first week. If people buy once a month, don't expect to break even on your advertising during the first 30 days. If your product selling cycle is longer than 2 years, you can expect to lose money on your ads – even if they're good – the first 4 to 6 months. You'll start pulling ahead during the second six months. Your real growth won't happen until you begin reaching that same group of people for a second year." - Roy H. Williams

So make sure you run ads again and again for a longer duration than your product selling cycle.

Obviously - you can run a "Sale" ad that sells at heavy discounts - and you'll persuade a few people to buy the product earlier than they would. But in the long run, discount ads are not worth it.

5. Testing.

Test your ads. You can do this in the call-to-action of your ads.

Provide different URLs in different ads and track the clicks. Or provide different phone numbers to call.

Or simply just ask people to call for Joe - where Joe is not a name of anyone working for you.

Things like that... hopefully this post gives you a good idea of things to look out for if you try out newspaper advertising.

Let us know how things go for you.