Small Business Newspaper Advertising

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Advertising in Newspapers

© Tony Allen

Nov 28, 2008

Most small businesses work on a tight advertising budget, and its all to easy to waste money on ineffective advertising. Choosing the best advertising medium for your business - newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, the internet, etc - requires a clear understanding of:

• Your customers - who they are, where they are and what they want. Don’t rely on hunch or guesswork. A simple DIY customer survey will give reliable answers.
• The different advertising media, their strengths and limitations and how to apply these to produce focussed, cost effective advertising.

Newspaper advertising, along with the yellow pages, is probably the most popular advertising medium for small businesses. However, it is not necessarily the best answer for all businesses and all situations. Assessing its advantages and disavantages helps to decide how and when it is cost effective.

Advantages of Newspaper Advertising

Mass Audience in Clearly Defined Circulation Area

• This allows you to focus your advertising nationally or locally to match your target catchment area.
• If your custom is largely local, you can avoid wasting money in unproductive areas.

Audience Quality

• Depending on the nature of your business and the readership of the paper, you may be able to some extent to target a particular socio-economic group.
• This is more marked with national than local titles.

Pro-Active Audience

• People expect to find advertising in newspapers and many actively look for it, especially in classified advertising in local newspapers, to find goods and services they need.

Retention

• Because your newspaper advert will appear as hard copy on paper, the reader can easily keep it for future reference, unlike radio and TV advertising, whose effect depends on the listener or viewer’s memory.
• This makes money-off offers, vouchers etc particularly effective in newspaper ads.

Flexibility

You can choose:

• A position and type of ad directed at your target audience, eg a classified ad to inform those actively looking for what you have to offer, or a feature-section ad to catch the eye of opportunity customers.
• Location, size, prominence and format, eg black and white or colour, to achieve the impact you want.

Affordability

• Newspaper advertising is generally less expensive than radio or TV advertising, but advertising rates vary according to circulation, the prestige of the paper and the size and prominence of the advert.
• A small classified advertisement in a local paper may cost only a few pounds, a full page spread in a national many thousands.
• Quick Response
• Advertising copy can appear in a daily title within 1 -3 days, or in 4-7 days for most weeklies.
• This allows you quickly to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity.

Disadvantages of Newspaper Advertising

Competition

• Your advert is competing for attention with those of all the other advertisers.
• It’s important to produce eye catching copy, and to take as big an ad and as prominent position as your budget will afford.
• In newspaper advertising occasional large and prominent ads are likely to be more effective in attracting opportunity customers than more frequent low-key ones.

Selectivity

• Newspaper advertising is aimed at a mass audience, and is unlikely to be cost effective for businesses targetting a small, specialised customer base.

Life Span

• Unless the reader deliberately keeps your ad, its life span extends onloy until the next editon.
• Repeat advertising helps mitigate this.

High Cost of National Advertising

• Advertising in national newspapers can be very expensive and unaffordable for most small businesses.
• However, if, for example, like a mail order retail or holiday letting business, you have a national customer base, classified ads in national papers can be very cost effective.

Conclusion

Comparing these advantages and disadvantages with those of other advertising media will help you spend your advertising budget wisely.

Newspapers are a Popular Advertising Medium

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