Why Advertising in Newspapers is Still Effective

Should You Consider Newspaper Advertising?

Each year, articles appear online bemoaning the death of newspapers and saying that websites will soon put old fashioned broadsheets out of business for good. Yet, each year, some newspapers continue to thrive as others shut down, suggesting there is still a viable market for newspaper publishers who know what they are doing. One of the most lucrative areas for any newspaper is advertising, which includes the ads that appear throughout the publication as well as the classified listings. Advertising in newspapers is still effective for many business owners, including larger chains and small, locally owned businesses. There are a few reasons that advertising in a newspaper can be effective.

Lack of Distractions and Competition Make Newspaper Ads Effective

Unlike the internet, where distractions abound, most readers of a printed newspaper are focused on what they are reading. Online, the same story that appears in print may be surrounded by ads, links to stories on related topics and weather and traffic information. On the average printed page, there are only a handful of ads, generally from different industries. This singular focus gives advertisers in a printed newspaper a much better chance of keeping the customer’s attention and closing a sale.

Reach Different Segments of the Market with Newspaper Advertising

Another factor in successful newspaper advertising is the desired target market. Certain segments of the reading public simply prefer the feeling of holding a publication in hand and turning the pages. Others are not as internet savvy as they could be. As a result, newspaper advertisers are actually reaching a coveted segment of certain audiences. If your product is aimed at seniors, grandparents or those who are not extremely technologically proficient, a newspaper ad can be much more effective than one that appears online.

Three Effective Tips for Making Print Interactive

Have you been looking for ways to improve your print marketing efforts? If so, there’s great news. By following three simple tips, you’ll be well on your way to making your print ads, labels, and content come to life.

Start Using QR Codes

QR codes might look like funny barcodes, but they are an excellent way to bring valuable information to your customers. In fact, when a customer scans a QR code using a mobile device that’s connected to the Internet, he or she will then be taken to your online site or application. It’s here that customers can watch videos relating to your services and products, leave feedback and lots more.

Always Incorporate Social Media Profiles

When it comes to bringing life to your print, social media is the way to go. On all printed materials that you supply to customers, make sure to let them know that you are active on an assortment of social media platforms and that you would love to connect with them. Once the two of you connect with one another, you’ll then be able to interact like never before.

Include the URL to Your Website

If your customers don’t know the link to your website, how are they supposed to visit your online store? Because of this, make sure that all of your printed materials include the URL to your website. Also, if your company hosts a blog, make sure to include the URL to it as well.

Email Marketing-The Importance of Tracking

Tracking email marketing campaigns is essential to measure your success or lack of-if that happens then you will know what to do next time around. Email marketing performance and the importance of tracking are crucial for success.

They allow you to see exactly how well a campaign performed or did not and why. Giving you an advantage to change tactics or improve them for better email marketing performance. Following the news in the email marketing sector which provides insight on the best practices.

Three Important Marketing Metrics Tracked Today

  • Deliverability rate
  • Click-through rate
  • Open rate

Deliverability rate is the most important step in defining a formula for calculating the rate of delivery throughout the program. Dividing the total of delivered emails by the number of emails sent, thus giving you the deliverability rate. Removing non-active accounts will improve the rates. Determine what form of messaging works the best and with what customers, continue to improve on the delivery methods ensuring a strong customer base.

Click-through rates are the most tracked in email marketing due to the ability to further track additional information such as email ROI and revenue generated by each email. Using different calls to action, links and content will have a direct impact on the rate. Targeted email marketing messaging, in smaller segments is more relevant and highly increases results.

Open rate is a principal metric of email marketing, the largest impact is on the subject lines rating to see which works best with the headlines. Body styles are also tested using click-through and open rate to establish which style combination brings results. The results will prove if redesign is necessary. Keeping a close eye on the time of and what days your messages are sent out, different times of the day affect rates.

A successful email marketing campaign depends on your tracking methods and practices, even the slightest changes make a difference. If you continue to track and measure the results, only the best possible solutions will arise, furthering your campaign success. The importance of email marketing tracking is what forms the bond between you and your customers.

Opportunities to Grow Using Print

Every business needs to take advantages of opportunities for growth. Launching new products and advertising existing products and services can help your company to grow and flourish, even in a competitive market.

Get Your Message Out

Flyers and other sales materials are helpful in covering large areas without incurring large expenses. You can place them in retail establishments and post them where there may be potential customers. Sales materials work well for promoting special offers, sales and upcoming events.

As an owner or manager of a new or growing business, you should understand that your products and services appeal to more people than those who are currently your customers. Wide-ranging advertising will bring new customers to your business. This is essential for your business to grow to its full potential.

Use Resources Wisely

Even if you own a large business, you need to compete with others in your field in order to survive and grow. You can create professional looking materials and documents without purchasing expensive equipment. If you need printed materials, the right printing service can help your business to grow.

You will often see brochures and catalogs online in today’s business world, but sometimes it is more effective to hand deliver these to customers and potential customers. Printed materials will be in front of the purchasing manager more than something they need to go online to access, when they are ready to place an order for products or services that your company offers.

Benefits of Using Printing Companies

Your business has a better chance for growth if you make use of professional printing companies, according to DevelopYourBusiness.org. You can appear as a larger or more established business, with professional printing jobs. Business cards and printed documents will give your business contacts the impression that your company is even more successful than it is.

There are design services available from professional printers, opening the door for services that your company might otherwise not be able to access. Solutions for your business are not only available, but also affordable. Using documents and brochures that are professional will give your business a facelift, and make dealing with you more appealing for potential customers.

 

Maximize Your Company’s LinkedIn Profile To Create A Stronger Business Presence

LinkedIn can be a gateway for a company to brand their products and services, connect with like-minded professionals, and share information to reach new clients. By maximizing your company’s LinkedIn profile, you will be on the right step to increasing your company’s exposure.

Complete Your Profile

An incomplete profile with missing sections decreases the chances of people finding you in targeted search results. Try to fill out every section that you can with relevant and enticing information about your company while avoiding the fluff that doesn’t add value to your brand, according to Kansas City Business Journal. Beef up your strong points and expand on your About Section by making the words address business professionals. Don’t just copy and paste the information from your website.

Update Your Cover Image

Cover images allow people to place a face with the company they want to know better. Make the photo visually engaging whether it is a headshot or a logo of your company. It should look completely professional.

Increase Accessibility

LinkedIn has provided the tools for you to make it easier for business professionals to follow your brand, receive company updates, and share links of your profile page. Provide these buttons and tools on your blog, main website and microsites to increase your brand exposure. You can also place menu features on your LinkedIn page to make it easier for visitors to go to your website and product pages.

Obtain Recommendations

Recommendations from reputable business professionals can have an impact on the popularity of your LinkedIn page. Get solid recommendations from professionals and clients that have actually interacted with your company. Ask them to leave comments that further enhances your brand.

Post Relevant Content

LinkedIn allows you to post short comments, URLs and other relevant information to people who are in your network. Make your posts compelling and relevant to encourage click-throughs. Also, post periodically without spamming your feed with too much information. Spamming tactics will only discourage people from reading your updates.

 

Tips for Writing Effective Product and Service Descriptions

If your product and service descriptions are not engaging, people aren’t going to bite. Instead, they’ll bypass your information and move on to a competitor who can capture their attention with descriptions that sizzle. When you remember a few simple rules, writing an effective product and service description is a breeze.

Know what you’re selling. Research the product or service before you try to describe it. If you know and understand every feature and benefit, it can help you write descriptions that are accurate and lifelike. You can research items on manufacturers’ websites. These sites typically offer in-depth info and little known facts about their products.

Pinpoint the audience. Knowing the demographic of the people who use the products or services can help you choose the best tone and style for your writing. For instance, if the primary users are teens, you may opt for a hip style of writing. If the item is used by professionals in a corporate situation, you’ll get better results by sticking to a more business-oriented writing style.

Be descriptive, but concise. People want to know what’s in it for them. So don’t bore readers into a coma with mundane feature descriptions. Instead, use colorful language to help potential clients visualize how the available features will make their lives easier. Don’t overdo it though. Keep the language simple enough for people to understand. Your readers shouldn’t have to keep a technical dictionary on standby to understand your descriptions.

Tell them what’s next. Don’t leave readers to figure out the next step. Tell them what they need to do to purchase your service or product. Ending your description with a call-to-action can seal the deal by encouraging potential customers to take action.

If your goal is to sell your products or services, effective descriptions are a must. If you know your product, understand your demographic, use appropriate language and use effective call-to-actions, you can write descriptions that command attention from potential buyers.

Most Effective Website Banners

Website banners are a great way to both monetize your website and to get the word out about your small business on the Internet. Depending on the type of site you’re running, website banners can serve two distinct purposes. A business can purchase advertising space on your website in the form of a banner. Whenever one of your site’s visitors clicks that banner and goes to the associated website, you can see a bit of a kickback on that investment. If you’re a business, website banners purchased elsewhere are also a great way to increase your traffic. Not all website banners are created equally, however, so you always want to make sure you’re using the most effective practices to see the absolute best possible results.

 

One of the most important factors to consider when designing the most effective website banner is the area on a site where that banner is designed to go. Depending on banner placement, the size of the banner will change to accommodate the layout of the website in question. If you want to design a banner that is supposed to run at the top of a page prior to content, for example, you would want to use dimensions like 728 pixels by 90 pixels. Doing so will allow the banner to be prominently seen but still not interfere with the page’s content. If you were designing a banner to run down the side of the page, however, you would want to go with something like 160 pixels by 600 pixels.

 

Another factor that you’ll want to consider when designing the most effective website banners is the visual aesthetic. The most effective website banners are very simple in nature and don’t have too many graphics or too many different colors. They convey a message in the quickest and most efficient way possible without overwhelming the visitor.

Increase Consumer Demand To Get Results

You have a great product but meager sales growth as the situation makes you want to pull out your hair in frustration. Why isn’t the product flying off the shelves? How can you bring more people through the store’s doors?

Increasing consumer demand allows you get your products to the right customers. Develop the right marketing strategies so that customers come rushing to your product.

Figure Out The True Purpose of Your Product

Lots of businesses are under the assumption that their product is a great fit for everybody. Unfortunately, this opinion is simply not true. There will always be some demographic that the product will appeal to the most, as you have to figure out who those people are. The best way to increase consumer demand is to know the ends and outs of your product. What are the benefits of your product? Who will gain the most from those benefits? Where are those people located and what is the best way to reach them with your advertising?

Once you answer these questions, you can further hone your marketing strategies to entice those people who will want to purchase your product. Change your advertising to market to your best buyers.

Figure Out Why Your Target Demographic Isn’t Buying Your Product

If you know who your target market is but can’t figure out why your advertising is falling flat, figure out why they are not interested. Using surveys, asking for product feedback, and analyzing past sales can help you understand why your product isn’t getting the demand it deserves.

You might figure out that your price is too high for the product, or a competitor has a snazzier marketing campaign that is catching their attention more than your own advertising campaign. Once you understand the opinions that the public has about your product, you can make improvements that will increase consumer demand.

 

How to Create an Extreme Competitive Advantage with Multi-Channel Marketing

The digital era has resulted in a shift in the way companies do marketing. Instead of focusing solely on a sole marketing channel to reach customers, you have an almost overwhelming amount of options to explore. Whether you want to link your direct mailing campaigns with a QR code landing page designed around that offer, or make your social media profiles work together to promote your content, using multiple marketing channels helps you get a competitive advantage over businesses who focus all of their efforts entirely on single channels. Multi-channel marketing benefits your business in several ways.

  • You reach a larger portion of your target demographic. Your audience doesn’t spend all of their time in one place online, and neither should you.
  • You get venues for repurposing existing content. Instead of writing up Facebook posts or tweets from scratch, look at your existing content and make it work on other channels. This helps you get the best mileage out of your content, as well as driving traffic within your corner of the web.
  • Increased brand awareness. The average customer has to see your name quite a few times before they feel comfortable purchasing from you. You increase the rate that they see your brand mentioned, helping you to get in their trust zone.
  • Customer engagement. Social media is the new word of mouth, so it’s important to have a presence on as many channels as you can reasonably support. You get direct access to what your customers are thinking and feeling about you and your products, giving you useful insights and a way to make a direct impression on them.

 

The Healthy Mix of Print and Online

For years, the major format for advertising centered around print marketing. From billboards to newspapers and magazines, this proved to be the main method of reaching individuals throughout the country. However, as media has evolved and moved more and more towards online, it is now essential for any successful marketing campaign to originate and have a strong footprint on the Internet. For some industries though, it is still a good idea to have a healthy mix of both print and online content, just to make sure all bases are covered.

The younger demographic is going to focus primarily on the Internet. These individuals obtain their news through online publications, access social media several times a day and have their smart phone within their grasp at all times, even when they sleep. Due to this, Internet marketing for these individuals is best. It also helps companies reach the demographic easily, as they can focus on a specific target audience, based on the potential client’s likes, dislikes, income, past concerts they have gone to and just about every other piece of information available. However, for companies that focus on a wider range of clients, it is valuable to utilize print marketing as well.

Print marketing still plays an important role in advertising. Older generations are more likely to still obtain their news from daily papers, read print magazines and look through local leaflets. Due to this, any business that focuses on either an aging demographic or has split age groups as their target audience, it is always a good idea to encorporate print into the marketing budget. This way, the company can make sure they go after every possible customer and client, without leaving some individuals out simply because they do not regularly check a social media account or use the Internet every day.