Newspaper Advert or Magazine Advert – which is better for your business?

Newspaper Advert or Magazine Advert – which is better for your business?


The question that many of our clients have been asking us is whether a magazine advert or a newspaper advert is better for their business?

Well in most cases we say neither.

Local businesses traditionally advertised in local papers and magazines - a lot still do. Perhaps for some tradesmen this still reaps rewards. But for most it is a waste of money.

Magazines are expensive and what do you get? Newspapers are not much better. And do you know what people say when we ask why they advertise there?

Top 2 answers:
                            Because we always have done
                            Because our competitors do

Are they rational reasons for spending good money?

Next we ask what returns these adverts provide.

Top answer:
                        We don't know

At best it’s hard to track results and at worst they are not even trying to see what their return on investment is. They have a budget and they spend it on what they always have done and hope for the best. Again this is not good business practice.

I am sure this is not how you run your marketing but I know from personal experience that when a paper rings up and makes an offer, discounted naturally, it is hard to say no; you decide to just give it a go. I used to until I discovered the systems and techniques that lead me to build Results Marketing.

I started my first business in 1988. Since then I have learnt a lot. The biggest contributing factor to the success of a business is the marketing. That may be location in the high street, or it may be a clever advertising. More increasingly it is a complex strategy involving many different streams of marketing.

These multiple streams all work together to create a continuous flow of new customers to your business. This is what Results Marketing is based on; a system of marketing systems all working together.

I wrote an article in 2009 on the 7 streams of marketing. I said that modern businesses needed to have multiple streams all running at the same time in order to be effective. The Results Marketing Workbook now has around 25 different systems for generating business. Now not all of these will be effective for every business but I recommend choosing a few and starting there.

One of the problems with traditional advertising is that the results and returns can be hard to track. That is why working with these systems is so effective. You get clear results and can see what is working and what is not. You do more of what works and stop the unproductive; replacing it with a different system.

In the past an advert would bring unqualified prospects to your door. Modern marketing techniques and systems qualify the prospect and pre-sell them. That means you don’t waste time selling to people who don’t want to buy, but instead you can spend your time taking orders.

Now more than ever people search online for what they want when they want it. That means that you need to have your business highly visible all the time. 40,000 people may read your newspaper advert but how many are ready to buy now?

When people search online they are ready to buy now. So it is far better to be visible to them than to the newspaper readers and hope that one or two may be in need at that particular moment.

So before you spend hundreds on an advert, try implementing some of the systems and techniques we use to get results. They are tried, tested and trackable. They include social media, local SEO, blogs and content marketing, PPC and many others.

For a sneak preview of the system workbook visit http://www.cr4l.com/self-marketing-download.html

If you want to get a steady stream of new clients and business, that is predisposed to buy from you, then you need Results Marketing.