Newspaper Advertising - Local Area

Originally Posted by CopyCub

What's the best way to reach the local business owners in my area?

I'm thinking of marketing some small business consulting services. I was going to test a few direct repsonse type ads in my local papers offering a report on something like small business or marketing mistakes.

One paper readership is something like 100,000 and the other is around 50,000.

Does anyone have any comments? Is the business section better to advertise in vs the main/front section? What about a week day (Tues, Weds, Thurs) vs. the weekend?

Thanks in advance!
Matt

In my town of about 25,000, there's a "Business License Office" in City Hall where every business has had to "Register Their Business" ($50 one-time fee) and...the woman who handles this dept has a List of Every Business that paid the fee for the past 20 yrs or so.

This List shows the name of the Owner and where he/she is located (so I can tell if they are out-of-town owners)

I get a copy of this List by simply paying $2 for a Copy. Plus, she emails me every month with new additions.

Now, maybe they don't do this in larger towns but, doesn't take much time to ask around at City Hall.

Don Alm
P.S. When talking to potential clients about "Newspaper Advertising" do NOT mention the word "Readership". Most business owners know that the word "Readership" is what the newspaper ad sales use to "sell" their ad space AND...biz owners know the ONLY thing that counts is "How Many Papers Do They Print!"

Our local newspaper "Prints" 20,000 newspapers a day and...on any given day they quote the "Readership" as 40,000 to 60,000....which "supposes" that 2 to 3 people actually "Read" the newspaper. This is "Hogwash". How does anyone know how many people "read" the paper? In fact, not every paper is even read by one person. Thus, when us "advertisers in the know" look at "circulation numbers" we take the actual number of papers printed and divide by 2 to get a more accurate idea of the number of "Readers" who will possiblt see out ads.