Effectiveness of running newspaper ad

[Jayd]

Hello all,

I am wondering what you all think and what results you have had with running an ad in the local newspaper. I am questioning if $75 for a one inch ad to be run for 7 days is worth it. It is more, of course, for having it printed in red ink, using graphics, shading or other "frills" to attract customers attention. I am a small business and don't like to waste time or money. Many thanks.

[tedharris]

Effectiveness of running newspaper ad

I good friend of mine is the manager for the Small Business Developement Office in Mississauga.

She tells me that their research shows that for maximuim effectiveness a newspaper ad needs to run for a minimum of 14 weeks.

You may perhaps want to run your ad only on the weekends if this stat is true to your area as well.

Hello all,

I am wondering what you all think and what results you have had with running an ad in the local newspaper. I am questioning if $75 for a one inch ad to be run for 7 days is worth it. It is more, of course, for having it printed in red ink, using graphics, shading or other "frills" to attract customers attention. I am a small business and don't like to waste time or money. Many thanks.

[jdaddy]

Lawyer answer "it depends"

What are your services?

From personal experiance my mow'n blow operation isn't going to do well spending money on the news paper. I got too many calls from all over the D/FW area and only two close to me. Flyers and good old fashioned knocking on doors work the best for me.

If you are doing big landscape projects it could be worth it.

If you are in a smaller area it could be worth it.

So, "it depends".

[ranger351w]

Adds

I run my adds in a local shopper,they are usually reasonable and effective. I started from ground zero last year in June and am swamped with business.
The adds are 2x3 for 21.00 a week and $6 per week in the column. I found news papers to be to expensive and unproductive.

But thats just my $.02
A.S.D.S.Mowing

[tycoon]

newspaper did great for me. I've spent somewhere close to 800 this year and its brought in about 5000 in one time jobs, and an additional 10 mowing customers. I also turned down several of the jobs, I was averaging 5-8 calls per day for about 3 weeks just from the newspaper. I ended the ad b/c I can't handle much more business with my schedule right now. good luck

[Stephen M.]

YES, YES, YES!!!!!!

The biggest mistake people make with newspaper ads is running them for a short period of time. Advertising is an INVESTMENT IN YOUR BUSINESS. It is also an important MARKETING tool.

The catch 22 for most of you is that it takes some bucks to do it, and its the large cash investment that scares you off. Let me tell you what it does for me.

There is another paper that publishes everyday, but I ignore that one; instead I advertise in the weekly newspaper that goes to 21,000 households. Demographics is important. The past 4 years, we have have been spending $60/week for a 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" display ad in the classifieds. Results were pretty good and alot better when we added a picture of the owners.

This year is our 20th business aniversary, and as a part of self promotion, I decided to run the ad in color and switch ad location in the newspaper. Just to run the ad in color jumped the cost from $60/week to $150/week; I do get a frequency discount.

My wife nearly came unglued at the added cost, but the number of calls has dramatically increased and we can be more choosey on who we sign on as customers.

As i mentioned, we changed ad location; we are no longer in the classified section, but across the page from the Obituaries. We don't pay extra for the exposure and everybody ends up at the Obits to see who died.

We increased $4000 in May 2006 over May 2005. The difference is color and location in the newspaper.

Think Investment. An expense? yes. But what better place to spend your money than on marketing yourself.

[jdaddy]

If only I could...

If I had a news paper in the area that was only distributed to 21k people near me I would jump on it.

Both the Ft Worth and Dallas paper go out to millions, and being directly between both cities I would have to pay double just so I could make sure every one around me had the chance to see my ad.