Newspaper. Are your consumers older? Research is kind of indicating that they’re more likely to read the newspaper than any other kind of consumer. If a rep comes to your business selling newspaper, continue to think about when, how, and why your customers might read the paper. If the rep is selling you something that doesn’t seem to fit, don’t buy it just because it still sounds like it’s a “good deal.”
Out of Home. Billboards are not just for directional signs anymore. You can buy them basted on either where your customers live or commute. When do you need to reach them? On their way home from work? To work? Or when they’re running errands around their their own neighborhood? The sales reps can find which boards are the right fit for you.
Online. This is actually one of the most difficult things to buy because there are so many ways to do it. There are some hyper local sales reps that may come visit you if you’re a big enough fish, but most of the time you’re on your own (or hiring someone to do it for you). And it’s not just about buying the impression anymore. You have to have things set up on the back end of your web site to know if the impressions you are buying are converting to visits and to actual sales. Do you use a vanity URL for each ad versus your own to track success? It depends on how awful your normal web site address is or how recognizable your brand already is. Did you know you can use Google generated 800#s in your search results that would also populate your web site to bridge the gap from people researching online to calling you? Besides this, you should use every little thing that Google offers, most importantly their Analytics package. It’s free and there is no reason to not have it attached to your site. If you’re a local business, take advantage of Adwords, Places, Yelp and Facebook to help concrete your presence in the community. If you don’t show up on these things, people may not think you’re really there!
If you ever need any more advice on this, review my other posts that I’ve written on these categories or feel free to just ask me. I’m happy to help.
Patti is still learning 