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For any business every
dollar is precious, but for a small business each precious dollar is more
critical. In regards to advertising, small businesses do not advertise for the
sake of advertising. Instead, they want to get the most return for their investment.
Your advertising campaign should translate to greater sales, greater exposure,
more profits and healthier bottom line.
There are many venues where
you can promote your business. In order
to figure out which one you should advertise in, you need to ask three
important questions:
- What is my target market?
- What is the best medium to reach them?
- Can I afford to launch an effective campaign using this
medium?
A central step to
developing your sales and marketing plan is to select the right media to send out
your message. Despite what advertising sales reps will tell you, there are no
hard-and-fast rules as to which media is better. The right media for one
business, can be the completely wrong medium for far another… even if they are
in the same industry.
When you
are ready to advertise and get the word out about your business, one of the
steps is to select the right media to promote and advertise your products and
services.
Here is a
look at the advantages and disadvantages of the usual suspects in print
advertisements: Newspaper, magazines,
yellow pages and direct marketing.
Newspaper Advertising
Newspapers are one of the
traditional mediums used by businesses to advertise their products and services. Both big and small companies use this medium
to “get the word out.
Advantages
- Allows you to reach a huge number of people in a given
geographic area
- You have the flexibility in deciding the ad size and
placement within the newspaper
- Your ad can be as large as necessary to communicate as
much of a story as you care to tell
- Free help in creating and producing ad copy is usually
available
- Quick turn-around helps your ad reflect the changing
market conditions. The ad you decide to run today can be in your
customers' hands in one to two days.
Disadvantages
- Ad space can be expensive
- Your ad has to compete against the clutter of other
advertisers, including the giants ads run by supermarkets and department
stores as well as the ads of your competitors
- Poor photo reproduction limits creativity
- Newspapers are a price-oriented medium; most ads are
for sales
- Expect your ad to have a short shelf life, as
newspapers are usually read once and then discarded.
- You may be paying to send your message to a lot of
people who will probably never be in the market to buy from you.
- Newspapers are a highly visible medium, so your
competitors can quickly react to your prices
- With the increasing popularity of the Internet,
newspapers face declining readership and market penetration. A growing
number of readers now skip the print version of the newspaper (and hence
the print ads) and instead read the online version of the publication.
Magazine Advertising
Magazines are a more
focused and are a more expensive alternative to newspaper advertising. But, this
medium allows you to reach highly targeted audiences, therefore eliminating
wasted distribution.
Advantages
- Allows for better targeting of audience, as you can
choose magazine publications that cater to your specific audience or whose
editorial content specializes in topics of interest to your
audience.
- High reader involvement means that more attention will
be paid to your advertisement
- Better quality paper permits better color reproduction
and full-color ads
- The smaller page (generally 8 ½ by 11 inches) permits
even small ads to stand out
- If the publisher has done his/her homework, all of the
content is read. Unlike, newspapers
where each individual reader has their favorite section (sports, politics,
event, etc.)
Disadvantages
- Longer lead times mean that you have to make plans
weeks or months in advance
- The slower lead time heightens the risk of your ad
getting overtaken by outside events
- Space and ad layout costs are usually higher than other
media due to the reproduction quality of magazine printing.
Yellow Page Advertising
There are many forms of
yellow page advertising. From the
regional business directories and local specialized ones, to national Internet
based directories, they all have one thing in common: nobody goes to the yellow
pages unless they are looking for you.
Advantages
- Wide availability, many people still use the paper
yellow pages
- Non-intrusive
- Action-oriented, as the audience is actually looking
for the ads
- Ads are reasonably inexpensive
- Responses can be tracked more easily than other media
Disadvantages
- Pages can look cluttered, and your ad can easily get
lost in the clutter
- Your ad is placed together with all your
competitors
- Limited creativity in the ads, given the need to follow
a pre-determined format
- Ads slow to reflect market changes
By knowing the advantages and disadvantages of each medium,
you can better determine where to market your businesses products and services
and use your precious dollars wisely.
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Advertising Success 
