Does Newspaper Advertising Work
Author : Sam Prochazka
Sales people are calling you to sell it, sellers are demanding it, and your association is telling you to use it, but is print advertising really worth all the time and money you’re putting into it?
Newspaper Advertising
Newspapers come in many forms:
- neighborhood newspapers
- city/state/national newspapers
- trade newspapers
- industry magazines
Advertising in each of these types of publications can be done in a variety of ways:
- classifieds
- small ads next to relevant, industry-specific content
- mid-size ads to full-page ads
- editorial sections
Is Strong Advertising Possible with Newspapers?
A strong advertisement incorporates all of the following:
- A Strong Headline. It’s been known for years that the most important element of a good advertisement is the headline. It’s such an important “make-or-break” part of the advertisement that copywriters have been known to spend 90% of their time on the headline and 10% on the rest of the article.
- Send out only material on which you are an EXPERT. Sending out too much information on too many subjects is a huge mistake many agents make. If you’re writing about strategic buying in a certain niche market, don’t include mortgage rates, home decorating tips, lifestyle ideas and health stories - these things all detract from the value of your expertise.
- LOOK GOOD. Old and grainy photos, outdated colors, blocks of multicolored text, cluttered design… Wow - some real estate ads are terrible! Sending out ugly or amateur-looking ads will cost lots and actually do damage to a Realtor’s image. Ads should be professionally drafted and look good.
- Include ALL contact information. If you’ve read my other articles you’ll see I’m becoming a broken record… Make sure you’re full name, brokerage, cell phone, office phone, fax, email and website URL are all on your ad.
- Use a good photo. I’m always surprised by the number of old photos Realtors use. If the photo isn’t from the most recent decade, DON’T use it! Get a nice, high-quality, professional photo of yourself to use on all ads.
So - is strong advertising possible with print? Yes, but it’ll cost you. To include all of these things as part of an advertisement takes room, and you can bet that publications will charge for every square inch you use.
What’s Happening in Newspaper Advertising?
Since 2005, newspapers have been losing advertising revenue. In fact, 2009 saw the largest decline in advertising revenue in the history of the industry:
- Employment classified advertising dropped 67.4% to $205.4 million.
- Real estate classified advertising slumped 45.6% to $336.9 million.
- Automotive classified advertising crashed 43.4% to $332.8 million.
- National advertising slipped 25.9% to $1.1 billion.
- Retail advertising stumbled 23.7% to $3.3 billion.
- Other classified advertising slid 16.5% to $587.7 million
2005 - Newspaper industry’s all-time best year with overall advertising revenue $49.4 Billion.
2009 - Newspaper industry overall advertising revenue at $30 Billion (40% decline from 2005).
(source: Newspaper Association of America)
The fact is that newspaper advertising is in decline and that during this period, online advertising has increased by double-digit percentages every year.
Is Newspaper Advertising Competitive?
In short - no. Newspaper advertising was competitive years ago when it was the established medium of choice for information distribution, but since the mid-90s and the advent of the Internet, print advertising has all but completely lost it’s advertising value. Here are the reasons why:
- Advertisers are seeing vastly higher rates of return from internet advertising
- The majority of news and information once offered exclusively on newspapers is now available freely on the internet
- Internet advertising can be highly targeted, whereas print advertising is broadly targeted at best
- Internet advertising is paid on click-through rates, not impressions
- Internet IDX/VOW searching have opened access for the public to almost all MLS systems in the nation - these services cannot be duplicated in print
There are exceptions, though:
- Highly-targeted lifestyle magazines are good sources of business if they are read by people in the niche you’re targeting - this is used by some of our top customers and can be extremely effective.
- Neighborhood newspapers are usually inexpensive and can create branding in your geographical niche.
So What’s the Lesson?
Here’s the surprising thing - in a survey of 30 Realtors we recently conducted, almost 80% reported using some form of newspaper advertising in the last 12 months. When asked if it was effective, 100% reported it was not. So, why are Realtors still using newspaper advertising?
BECAUSE THEIR SELLERS KEEP ASKING FOR IT!!!
So - the are really two points to be taken from this:
- Newspaper advertising is a waste of money unless done very carefully and in the right publications, and
- Most Realtors will save thousands of dollars/year if they learn how to convince their sellers that newspaper advertising WON’T SELL THEIR HOMES FASTER!
Sam Prochazka manages Realpagemaker, a company that has been building Realtor and real estate websites exclusively since 2002. Sam Prochazka regularly contributes to the real estate websites blog.
Distributed by http://www.ContentCrooner.com
How to Increase Sales Lead Conversion with Print Ads
Author : Ron Subs
There are many strategies you can use to increase conversions in our B2B print advertising. If you want to increase conversions in your B2B print marketing, you should try these marketing tips sure to increase response.
Include the benefits or advantage of your product or service in your headlines. If you put benefits in the headline you will catch the reader’s attention and generate an inquiry or request for more information. The reader should be able to immediately see the reason why they should buy your product or service.
You should also immediately inform the reader about what applications your product is ideal for. When readers recognize their application for your product or service they will be more likely to respond when they see that your product will solve a problem for them.
Make your ads easy to skim. Take a lesson from the web in your print design and break up text into small, easy to read pieces. Make it easy for readers to “skim” your ads and still get your message by using bulleted copy, subheadlines, and illustrations or photos to quickly communicate key points.
Use testimonials wisely. Tasteful testimonials will entice readers, but be careful because over the top statement will scare off prospective buyers. You should always give specific information of the person being quoted and back up any other claims by referencing the source of the data.
Consider smaller, more frequent ads for a wider reach. If you want B2B sales leads generation, your advertising needs to be present when your prospects are looking for solutions to their problems. Instead of placing a few full-page ads, you can spend the same amount on placing smaller ads in publications more frequently. Having more ads in more publications also makes your company look bigger, more successful, and reaches a larger prospective customers base.
Ron Subs is a marketing consultant for www.wholesalelists.net who provide quality sales leads for many different markets.
Earn 10 000 Per Year From Your Blog How to Make Money Blogging
Author : Anthony Wayne
You can easily make enough money from your blog to pay for your living expenses while at college. By living expenses, I mean beer and pizza, of course, plus an occasional cheap date with that cute girl you stare at in your economics class.
The easiest way to make money from your blog is to write articles for other sites. Sign up for services like Blogsvertise. Blogsvertise will pay you for writing articles that promote other sites. The fee is usually about $10 per article. If your site has a page rank (page rank is Google’s relative value of a site) of at least 3, you will get more opportunities to write articles for Blogsvertise.
Another way to make money from your site is to sign up to allow for advertising on your site. You don’t have to know any html programming to place advertising on your blog. Simply cut and paste the html provided by the site into your widgets on the blog and you’ll be off and running on making money.
I recommend using sites that will pay you on a CPM basis. CPM means cost per thousand if you have never taken a Latin class. Some of the best places to get CPM advertising is on sites such as AdBrite, Adify, Traffic Marketplace, and Find It Quick. With CPM, you’ll be guaranteed to make money for every thousand visitors to your site so it makes the most sense for a college student in search of his next dozen wings.
Some CPM ads are banners, but there are other advertising opportunities available as well. Other opportunities include pop-up ads, full page ads that cover your site temporarily, and in-text ads that will create links out of your already existing copy. Maybe it’s just me, but I think all of these kind of ads look spammy and are a net negative to your site and repeat visitors.
Other advertising sites fall in the category of affiliate networks, the most popular of which is Commission Junction. Other affiliate networks to consider are Share A Sale, Link Connector, and Primary Ads. With affiliate networks, you will usually get paid on a CPA basis, meaning a cost per acquisition. In this case, you’ll receive a commission when somebody clicks on the advertisement of your site and purchases something from the advertiser. In this equation, the blogger is known as an affiliate and the advertiser is known as a merchant. CPA deals work best when you have a real niche subject and appropriate niche advertiser.
Remember earlier when I said I’d tell you a little trick about getting a discount on your URL purchase and your web hosting? Here it is. Sign up for one of the affiliate networks first and agree to promote GoDaddy and BlueHost, or whomever you decide to use. Then, you will be your own first customer and your own first affiliate network commission.
Still another way to make money is to sell text links. Advertisers love text links within your copy, because it helps their search engine rankings when other sites link to them. Sites like Text Link Ads and Text Link Brokers are easy to use and will sell links on your site for you.
You should also take advantage of pay per click advertising. The most used pay per click advertising opportunities are provided by Google AdSense. With Google AdSense, you promote Google’s paid advertisers on your site. When somebody clicks on those Google links, you get paid. Google is certainly not the only place to obtain these kind of links, but it is the easiest to use and is perfect for beginners just getting started.
Finally, put a page on your blog that is about advertising. Make sure that it is linked to a paypal account so that potential advertisers can pay you directly as some won’t want to even contact you. Keep the cost of your advertising very reasonable, especially in the early days of the blog.
Click Fraud
Why can’t I just click on my own ads and make money?
The answer to this question is that you absolutely can click on your own advertisements. The problem, however, is that its short-term thinking. Advertisers on CPM deals are monitoring your site for its return on investment (ROI) more than anything else. Internet advertising is just like any other advertising that they do. If it doesn’t produce results in terms of e-commerce sales, then it simply isn’t going to last very long. They will pull the ads from your site.
Of course, the more important reason why not to click on your own ads is that it is illegal and frowned upon as a black hat internet technique. Is one click here and there going to kill you? No, but don’t ever click from your own IP address. The internet advertising systems do monitor this and they will take away your account if you click on your own advertisements too often.
Anthony Wayne works in the marketing department of Advanced Telecom Services which provides a do-it-yourself mobile marketing site and also is the leading vendor of 900 numbers in the USA and Canada.
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