Should I keep Running my Newspaper Ad?
Had this question from a private client recently. Do you know what the best bang-for-the-buck advertising is with newspapers? My response might surprise you…
QUESTION:
“Jerry, I have been doing a local newspaper ad that has not seemed to be doing much. We had a large ad about a month before we opened and have run smaller black and white ads since but have had very little response besides name recognition thru this ad. Would you stop the ad or just change it?”
MY RESPONSE:
Generally, biggest bang for buck when using a newspaper:
1) press releases announcing certain events. cost = free aside from the writing and distribution, but you can copy mine. Or, I can do something specific for your business (we’ve added 24 new clients so far this month since Oct 30th from this strategy – see the news article ran from our efforts here
and also here.
and finally, here.
I ran another similar campaign for free at-risk kids’ exams and ended up with another 15 pts this summer when I did something similar.
You can see my blog post on them and a release you can use here.
A few days later, I write about getting featured (I had no idea it’d be so quick, and they didn’t do it just once, they ran it again on November 4th!)
2) running free standing inserts (FSIs) – I’ve been very successful with this over the last 12 years – Probably generated ten thousand patients for a handful of dentists all over the U.S. They are an 8.5×11 insert into the newspaper as a stand-alone insert, zip code targeted generally, at a print and insert cost of usually 10 cents per paper – far cheaper and far more effective than an ad.
3) ads in paper. expensive and generally, low ROI. however, there are the exceptions (none I’ve been too successful with however).
I’d suggest 1 and 2 and doing them in concert.
Again, I’d be happy to look at the ad for you. ClearPath Society members get use of my press release system which is very simple and generates oftentimes, very, very large responses. Details on ClearPath Society, here.
Post your questions – happy to answer ‘em!