Print advertising is not Dead!

Don’t let anybody tell you that print is dead. Even in the age of smartphones and the Internet, your potential customers are still paying attention to the printed word, and you can boost your sales by advertising in magazines and newspapers, as well as with direct mail.

 

Here’s why these old-school media still matter and how you can succeed with each of them.

Print Ads Command Attention.

The age of digital media has not killed the print magazine. If anything, it has drawn into sharper focus how much of an impact print advertising can have compared to advertising online. For one thing, print ads command attention that online ads don’t.

Our brains are literally built to remember print advertising better than we remember digital adverts. Even the millennials, the first generation to grow up with the Internet, are far more likely to pay attention to print ads than they are to digital ads.

Printed adverts also offer a better longevity that online ads don’t have. A banner ad is gone once the user clicks on another page; even a viral video or meme only commands attention for a few seconds or a few minutes. On the other hand, print ads can literally live forever. Thumb through the pages of magazine from 1, 5 or 10 years ago, and the ads will still be there.

Print Advertising equals Strong Credibility

Another advantage of print is that it offers stronger credibility: consumers trust print advertising in much larger numbers, in fact it’s around 71 percent where as they trust TV adverts around 41 percent or online advertising just 25 percent.

Of course, sales of digital ads are growing and will continue to grow, but print advertising is hardly dying. If anything, it’s leveling off after a period of decline. That means it’s going nowhere, and the truth is that the most effective advertising strategies will probably combine print and digital media. Often, buying one through a media outlet will also get you the other.

Print can be an inexpensive and surprisingly effective way to advertise your business and bring in new customers and drive people to your website

Magazine Adverts

People absolutely still read magazines. In fact, most people who read online also read magazines in print, and those could end up being some of your best customers. Social media advertising might reach more potential customers, but print is more likely to reach the right ones.

Of the three different categories of readers—those who read in print and online, those who read only in print and those who read only online—print-digital readers have the highest average income, followed by print-only. Online-only readers have the lowest average income of the group.

How to Write A Magazine Ad

As for how to write a compelling magazine advert, remember to keep it simple. Nobody flips through magazines to see the adverts. Your best bet is very little text, an inspiring headline and a captivating image. There’s a good reason though, that ad gurus get paid what they do to create the images you see in magazines. It’s surprisingly hard to do! Not to worry if you can’t create ads that look like what the professional  produce as there are many local designers that can help.

Still, you can use the principle of simplicity to your advantage. Remember that the average reader’s attention span these days is about 140 characters—the maximum length of a tweet. If you’re using more text than that, not counting your company name and contact info, you’ve probably written too much text. You could even run your text through a letter counter like Microsoft word to see how far you’ve gone over and decide what to remove from your campaign. A sentence or two is more than enough.

Primarily, just make sure to mention what your product or service is and how people can get a hold of you. If there’s something that makes your business unique (“Everything Local All In One Place”), mention it. Just keep it short.

Where To Place Your Magazine Ad?

Once you develop killer advert, you’ll need somewhere to place it. Don’t worry if you can’t afford the rates at the large glossy magazines or monochrome newspapers. Those types of publications are probably not what you need, anyway.

Very little media are as targeted as magazines. There’s a print publication for virtually every hobby and profession in existence. Do you make collectible? There’s a magazine for that. There’s even a magazine just about chickens. There are lots of magazines of regional interest, too. If you don’t already know where you’d like to advertise, just try typing a business idea or region into Google followed by the word “magazine” and see what happens. Chances are, you’ll find something targeted to your customers.

Make Sure to Test First

A word of caution: You don’t have to jump into magazine advertising with both feet. See how it works for you at the start. Take out a small ad, maybe a quarter page or half page, in a magazine of your choice. If you can afford it, try taking out another in a similar local publication.

Magazine ads don’t have the built-in analytics that digital adverts have, so you might want to take testing into your own hands. Promise a discount or other special offer to customers who mention your advert or bring it into your place of business, if you have one. If you advertise in more than one place, check which magazine is bringing in customers. Also, take care to track your sales figures for the time period when the ad campaigns runs (3 months, normally), and see if you notice an improvement in web traffic or if the phones rings more often.

Don’t Forget to Negotiate

Keep in mind, that magazine advertising doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Some publications practically give their print adverting away if you advertise with them online (and vice versa—a print buy can lead to free digital ads). Don’t hesitate to negotiate a print package when possible when you’re buying other forms of advertising