I recently had a customer tell me he stayed away from newspaper advertising because “It seems newspapers are on a downward slide and don’t get viewed like they used too.” Ouch!
As someone in the commercial, that has been tough to hear. Luckily, my friends, that isn’t an accurate assessment. Newspapers remain an electrical house in advertising. Not to say that internet marketing and other technologically driven marketing has not changed the way we spend our advertising budget. However, many marketing plans are seriously lacking by leaving out newspaper advertising all together.
With hundreds of television channels, thousands of magazines and millions of sites, channel proliferation has definitely changed the way advertisements are presented. With the endless level of “opt-out” possibilities to viewers, including, DVRs, commercial-free satellite radio, pool result national “do not call” lists, web firewalls and blockers, etc., getting your advertisements viewed has become a bigger challenge than ever before. Newspapers however remain an “opt in” medium, a location where consumers actively seek out advertisements rather than avoid them. Newspaper advertising remains a destination not really a distraction. In reality, newspapers were the past place consumers would choose to remove advertising, based on Yankelovich Research, 2004.
In accordance with NAA’s (Newspaper Associate of America) Business Analysis & Research Department, 48% of adults read a newspaper on a typical weekday. That number increases to 54% on a typical Sunday. In reality in a MORI study of “How America Shops & Spends,” newspaper ads ranked highest as the sort of ad that consumers enjoy reading. When is the past time you heard someone say that in regards to a Pop-Up ad?
Not just do consumers actively look for and enjoy ads in the newspaper, they really trust them more. Because of the established history of newspapers, people tend to trust newspapers more than some other advertising medium. Gaining the trust of a newspapers’ audience can produce awesome results, especially given the quality of the audience.
No other media can deliver the prospects a newspaper can. Newspaper readership increases as both household income and education levels increase. In accordance with Scarborough Research, 2007 Release 2 (Top 50 Market Report), newspaper readership is greatest in occupations with an increase of job responsibility, such as Management, Business, and Financial Operations.
Newspapers provide contact with people that advertisers want to reach; people that have higher incomes, higher education and those that are ready to buy. Newspapers are constantly impacting buying decisions and product usage. They have proved to remain steady in a changing world, and have earned their status since the premier medium for advertisers.