Small Business Marketing Archives

Direct Response Advertising: Efficient and Effective for Small Businesses

target You have a small business. You have been going strong for several years, but you are looking to grow. Your mind immediately goes to new marketing strategies. So you try several mass marketing options: television ads, radio ads, Internet ads. Unfortunately, you see little return on your investment. In fact, you quickly discover that the capital you would require to compete with larger businesses would put you out of business in a week.

Don’t be discouraged! There is a more efficient and effective marketing technique that could just do the trick for you.

Direct response advertising allows you (the small business owner) to capitalize on the funds you have available for marketing. This form of marketing elicits an immediate response from your potential customer. Whether it’s being added to your email list, being redirected to your website, or being encouraged to call for more information, direct response advertising does not waste any time in getting prospective customers to your literal or virtual doorstep. [Read more…]

Is Newspaper Advertising Staging a Comeback?

In an era of digital news, it is easy to forget the days when the Sunday paper was the source of news and ads. People turned to the weekly paper for everything from world and local news to the stack of newspaper advertising inserts buried inside.

But when the digital age appeared, the Sunday paper seemed to fade into the background — or so many thought — but it turns out that may not be the case, after all.

According to a recent survey by the Newspaper Association of America, which works on behalf of the industry, 79 percent of the adults surveyed, had “taken action as a result of reading or seeing an ad in a print newspaper in the past 30 days,” — and the survey also revealed, “that 57 percent of respondents had used newspaper media for shopping purposes in the past seven days.” [Read more…]

Why do you need direct response advertising?

You may be wondering why you need direct response advertising. This branch of marketing is what it seems: consumers’ immediate response to a company or product’s advertisement.

There are a multitude of reasons why a company might want to consider direct response advertising. According to BusinessDictionary.com, direct response advertising involves at least four devices in which they are presented to the consumer:

These devices (called direct response mechanisms) include a (1) coupon to cut and mail, (2) business reply card, (3) toll-free telephone number, or, on the internet, (4) hotspot to click. Most retail sale advertisements are direct response ads in one way or the other.

These forms of direct response advertising allows the company or product to communicate directly with the consumer. This is used to get an understanding of how the company or product can better serve their consumers. [Read more…]

Print ad design costs: Calculating your Print Advertising ROI.

One of the first questions that comes up when searching for a print ad designer is how much does my print ad design cost? Print ad pricing is an important part of the decision process when searching for a freelancer or ad design agency. But not the only thing.

With print advertising as other advertising media, you already have a built in cost — and that is the cost of buying your ad space. Add in the cost of your production and you have the total cost of your insertion. Of course you could also add in the cost of your time or an employee’s time to organize your marketing effort. So let’s do a simple calculation on a hypothetical print ad.

Let’s say you are going to run a 1/4 page in a community newspaper. For the sake of argument, we will be running the same ad 3 times. Each insertion is $750.00, so the total cost of running the print ad will be $2250.00. The cost of you design the ad is $395.00 (which is what we would normally charge), and it took you 3 hours coordinate the ad design and work with your paper’s ad sales representative (at $50/hr)

Print Ad Media Costs = $2250.00
Print Ad Design Costs = $395.00
Administrative Costs = $150.00
==========================
TOTAL COST = $2795.00

So your ad costs $2795, right? Well, not really. The reason you’re advertising is to make a sale, correct? So we need to factor how much business this ad will attract, and then factor that into our costs. Let’s say you will get 10 leads per insertion, so a total of 30 leads. Of your 30 leads you have a conversion rate of 20%. Each sale is worth $500 with a lifetime customer value of $2000. [Read more…]

Advertising in newspapers with Free Standing Inserts (FSI’s)

Free standing insert sales sheet While newspaper display advertising (or ROP ads for Run Of Paper) has seen a decline in recent years, the bright spot for many local dailies and weeklies has been Free Standing Inserts — otherwise known as ‘pre-printed inserts’.

If you’ve looked at the Sunday paper recently, you may notice there is more stuffed IN the paper than there is newspaper itself. For many newspapers these ‘pre-prints’ have helped reverse declines in ad revenue, while providing an great vehicle for local and national advertisers to broaden their reach.

Here are some reasons why newspaper inserts should be considered when developing your advertising media plan:

1) More space to communicate your sales message.

While you may have prime positioning in the main news, the space is limited. You may only have a 2 column by 5 inch ad — while with a free standing insert, you could have an 8.5 x 11 inch full-color sheet that’s 2-sided. This provides much more room for sales copy, photos, or coupons.

2) Inserts are more affordable

With digital and online printers, it’s never been cheaper to print 4 colors inserts. Many publications offer economical printing services discounted as an incentive for you to run in the paper. There are also many online printers that can print your job quickly and economically. Two of our personal favorites are PS Print and 48 Hour Print. In each case you can enter your quantities and get an instant print estimate.

Also, in comparison to direct mail, the cost of distributing an insert is usually much less than direct mail that requires a large investment in not only the printing, but the postage. [Read more…]