Print Advertising Design, Magazine Ad and Newspaper Ad Design

Does print advertising still have a place in your marketing budget?

Social Media Marketing. Content Marketing. Inbound Marketing.

In a web-centric marketing landscape that changes so rapidly year by year, is there still room for good-old-fashioned print advertising? After all, your marketing budgets aren’t getting larger – just your marketing options. But there’s a fundamental flaw with the concept that choosing online or offline marketing is an either/or proposition.

The conventional wisdom says that print is dying. Sure. Yup. Got it. We’ve heard it all. But by that same logic, we better write off commercial radio and network television while we’re at it, yes? I can get all the commercial-free music I want from my satellite radio or my iPhone. Factor in my HBO and my Netflix shows, I may never have to see or hear a commercial again! Meanwhile I still schlep to the curb every morning to get my morning newspaper. Crazy, I know.

So just for a minute let’s cut out the Henny Penny sky is falling thing, and look at this from a different perspective.

Yes. Agreed. Print publishing has taken it squarely on the chin over the last 10 years. And yes, the print advertising industry is radically different than the days before Al Gore invented the Internet. But at the same time, let’s look at some of the online options for small businesses.

Online Display Advertising

That would include all those banner ads that you completely ignore. If you’re Buick and introducing your new hybrid crossover luxury sedan, you probably don’t care that nobody clicks on your ads. It’s branding. “Oh hey”, you say to yourself. “Look… Buick has a new hybrid crossover something or other. But there’s no way I’m clicking on that banner because I’m busy reading about Jennifer Lopez’s liposuction to click off the page. For REAL businesses (like yours) …. online banners are often the upsell the newspaper rep threw in to get you into the print edition. Wow. Five thousand impressions in the Harrisburg Bugle for FREE? [Read more…]

AdMedic Web Design Services

We often get asked if we provide web design, and the answer is always absolutely! Though we established our reputation in print advertising design, many clients are not aware that we have been providing small to mid-sized businesses and organizations with professional web design services for over 10 years now (In fact, we designed and developed AdMedic.com).

AdMedic offers a total web solution that includes custom design, hosting, content management, traffic building, tracking, support and more – all for one great price. And providing you more than just a great website, but a complete web presence. For more information about our affordable web design services, please contact us today.

Print goes digital: Adapting print advertising for online use

Before: 4-Color Magazine Print Ad

One request we increasingly get from clients is to convert their print ads for online use. Making the necessary changes to get your print ads online is not difficult, but there are some changes that need to be made to accommodate a web format.

One of the key differences is that print ads generally provide all the information in the ad, and ask you to take an action (at least a good print ad will!). On the other hand, banner advertising serves more to grab the reader’s attention, and get them to click to a website or a landing page which will then serve as the means to generate the online action (call us, fill out a form, etc).

So can display advertising be the starting point for a good banner ad or campaign? Absolutely. But you need to remember a few things while you’re at it.

For one, keep it short! Think of a banner ad as a billboard. You need to distill your print ad to the most important points. And try to cut the copy as much as you can — just leaving the key motivators that will encourage your prospect to click through to your website.After all there is usually less space on a banner, and the resolution is lower on the web, meaning you can’t make the font size too small or it won’t be legible anyway.

A recent example is a print ad we did for a client (pictured here) – when he then wanted converted into a 300×250 banner ad for the print publications website (It’s very common these days for trade publications and other pubs to offer banner ads as part of the print buy, or for a nominal extra charge).

After: 300×250 Banner Ad Design

In this example we had to cut out quite a bit of copy, resize the ad from a vertical format to a horizontal format, and then add a button to encourage click-throughs.

In then end, the client was able to leverage their existing print advertising design to work with their online marketing effort – saving time and effort, and creating a more uniform “campaign” look across both mediums.

If you would like more information on how you can better integrate your online and offline advertising, contact us today.

Print Ad Pitfalls: Top 10 Things to Avoid When Preparing Your Next Ad Message

Your concept focusing too heavily on your product’s features instead of the benefits you offer potential buyers. People will respond because of the benefits out of your product, such as convenience, wealth, happiness, safety, intelligence, entertainment, etc. Customers are less responsive to features you put into your product, such as size, weight, durability, company experience, friendliness, etc.
Your concept uses too many different type fonts and design “doo dads.” Uncluttered, seamless advertising allows people to get to the main point faster.
Your concept attempts to present too many benefits or ideas at one time. Good marketing focuses on the single most compelling reason customers should stop and read and respond to your offer over what competitors offer. This focused benefit should be front and center in your advertising. All other benefits and product features should be secondary to the main message.
Your concept relies on “borrowed interest” to present your message. The visual image or metaphor you are featuring in your ad design is too far removed from your actual product. Introducing unrelated ideas only confuses potential customers.
Your concept relies on too much copy. Sometimes less is more. Too much copy crammed into a limited space makes the reader work too hard and they will move on. Try to focus on they main benefit you offer and limit the supportive copy to “proving” you can deliver on the promised benefit.
Your concept will not reproduce well in publications
Your company logo is too prominently featured. People are more interested in promises of what you can do for them than your company name. Reducing the size of your logo will give you more space to sell without sacrificing response.
Your concept lacks an incentive to respond, or a means to respond. Your concept should guide the potential customer to take the next step, whether that is to log onto your website, call a number, show up at an event, bring a coupon to a store, or accept an incentive to act.
Your concept does not clearly explain your product or service. Curiosity killed the cat and it can kill off potential customer interest too. Don’t make people work too hard to understand your message.
The tone of your ad design concept is inappropriate for the type of benefit you offer. Think of your product or service as a person. What’s the personality trait? Intelligent, quiet, fast, strong, sexy, sympathetic? The words and images you use in your ad concept should match the personality of your product or service.

Is my print ad working? Traditional and non-traditional ways to find out.

So you are about to invest a boatload of dollars to run your print ads. And there’s this question that’s been bugging you: is this going to work?

Marketers have asked this question for years, but measuring print ad effectiveness can be very difficult. While it’s tempting to wait and see the impact of your ads on sales, a lot of factors come into play before a sale happens, and it usually takes a long time to see sales results from ads.

That means you can waste a lot of money on an ineffective ad before you even realize what’s going on. So it’s imperative that you quickly discover the effectiveness of your print ad.

There are two ways to measure ad effectiveness. The expensive way, and the creative way.

To find out which one is right for you, read on.

The traditional solution lies in hiring a market research company to conduct pre-advertising and post-advertising measurements. If you are about to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in your advertising campaign, a market research firm is the way to go. They may help you prevent very costly mistakes before it’s too late.

Even after just the first month or two of advertising, a researcher can jump in and compare factors awareness, preference, and perception of your brand, before and after your ads run.

Or, even without the benefit of running your ads, researchers can simply pretest your ad concepts and measure the likely effect that your ad message will have on typical customers. “Soft” factors that can be pre-measured include, interest, relevance, likeability, believability, uniqueness, news worthiness.

But what if you are a smaller advertiser who cannot justify the cost of research?

Can you still measure the effect of your ad without waiting for sales reports? The answer is yes, if you are prepared to get a little creative with the information you include in your ads.

One creative approach is to add a response element to your ad—give prospective customers a secondary reason to respond, even if they are not ready to buy immediately.

For example, if you have a brochure for a complicated or expensive product or service, offer to mail it to prospects free. The response your offer generates, while not yet sales, is a faster, cheaper way to measure whether your ad is attracting notice.

Other types of creative offers you might consider including in your ad are: free 30-day initial trial… contest entry… free how-to guide… free evaluation… free consultation… free analysis.

[Read more…]