Marketing is one of the most important tasks of your company. Be sure to get your message across.
A great way to do this is to use newspaper inserts in your ad campaign.
First, decide where you are going to advertise. I use the smaller weekly newspapers instead of the larger daily ones. Weekly newspapers are usually much cheaper.
My weekly newspaper only charges about $40.00 for 1000 inserts.
Another reason to use inserts is that you can target specific zip codes.
For example, in the 78209 ZIP code you serve an ad focused on businesses, while in the 78248 ZIP code you serve an ad targeted at residential customers.
This is a powerful method of targeting your marketing messages.
The benefits don’t stop there! With a display ad, you only get a small space to promote your products or services. With the inserts you get all the space you need.
You can produce a single double-sided page or a multi-page insert. Which do you think is most likely to get your message across to the most customers?
All display ads look the same
To me, almost all display ads look the same. How do you make your message stand out from the crowd? Use bold text, borders, and large headlines to draw attention to your ad. However, they still need to compete with any other ads in your section.
featured inserts
All of these tactics work with inserts, but you have much less competition.
Tip: Use colored paper to make your insert stand out even more!
How do you use embeds to promote your business?
1. Select the markets you want to target and develop the insert targeting that particular market segment.
2. Locate those markets by zip code.
3. Print the inserts at your local print shop.
4. Give your inserts to the newspaper and they will insert them in the newspapers that go to the ZIP codes you select.
For my company, a typical embed campaign looks like this. Five thousand inserts divided between three zip codes. Each zip code receives a specific message printed on shiny gold paper with black ink.
The cost is around $80.00 per thousand. Forty dollars for the newspaper and $40.00 to print the inserts. I write my own ad copy. Total cost is approximately $400.00 per run.
My experience is that I get much better performance with embeds than I do with display advertising.
The key to an effective marketing campaign is to target your customers with multiple exposures. One-time marketing is simply not enough!
Tip: Create an insert that gives your customers the information they want to keep for later reference. Consider a short information brochure to accomplish this. An 11 x 17 inch sheet of paper makes an inexpensive but effective four page brochure! See my article Marketing Your Business With Tip Pamphlets.