Goes to show you that advertising does pay off

[Blessed]

I received a phone call today from an interior designer needing some logo and marketing material work. She clipped an ad I had in the paper that hasn't been printed for over 6 months and just now called me from it.

I'm just glad my ad was memorable enough that she clipped it and called me!

The point though is that advertising is effective, it just doesn't always pay off when you expect it to or when you want it to - but it does pay off!

[mcfarldr1]

That's a long wait for an ad she clipped out! Glad it worked out for you Blessed!

[huggytree]

i had one customer who took 1 year from my bid to signing the job. She had saved all my newspaper articles i wrote(4) for 2 different newspapers....i found that one strange...like she was in my fan club.

[KristineS]

Glad the ad worked for you Jenn. Nice to see new business coming in.

[Harold Mansfield]

[Blessed]

Isn't that the truth Harold!

Advertising is just one of those things - you know it's essential, you know you should be able to track the results (and often you can set-up ways to do that) but there is just no way to predict every way that people will react to your ad.

[Paul McQuillan]

Advertising is needed in any business, but I'm not sure
this example is a positive or not.

When the ad is placed the immediate response counts, not
6 months down the road. You mention the one call but how
did the ad do when you released it?

[seolman]

A few years ago 1800flowers.com shifted $40M from their web advertising to printed media. They realized "ad blindness" was lowering their CTR.

In many cases print makes a lot of sense. I love putting small ads into coffee table magazines that sit in waiting rooms for Drs and Dentists. You get a lot of mileage out of these.

[Blessed]

Paul - I do think it was a success this time. Because...

1st - I did receive calls from my ads during the time the paper was published
2nd - the paper was delivered to every household in four or five zip codes around me - it was not targeted at my "target market". True, it did hit a few people within that market but it was not a targeted ad.
3rd - the ad was a very generic - hey I'm Crazy Dog Creative and I do small business graphic design and marketing work ad. - It was primarily a name recognition, type ad - no deadlines, no calls to action, no urgency
4th - the ad didn't cost me any cash. The publisher of the local paper asked if I would be interested in writing something for the paper so I started writing generic stuff. It was a no-compensation except you can have a byline and a free business card sized ad arrangement, but I like to write, so I said why not? and did it.

For that sort of investment - I've been very happy with the return on the ad.

Interestingly... a bit more background, we received good feedback from my writing and I started writing on more specific topics, now I cover the local political scene. When the layout person they were using called during deadline week one month to say she was done doing it and quit without notice, they called me in a panic and I started doing the layout too - I made subtle changes that took the paper from an amateur looking monthly hobby paper to a serious monthly paper in the area that our competition sat up and took notice of. Unfortunately we lost enough of our advertising base because of businesses going under last summer/fall that we had to quit printing and in January of this year went to a full-bore online newspaper, where we're building readership, community participation and advertising up again. The short-range plan is to try to print quarterly and work back into monthly printing again. But... the reason for that long story is that I can't tell you how much referral work and name-recognition and networking I've garnered from being involved with the newspaper. It was something I did on a whim and a gut feeling that it could be a good thing that has turned into a really good thing. Easily 1/4 of my income last year came from work I had a chance at because my work for the paper kept my name in front of people that needed my services, and I'm seeing repeat business from them this year along with getting even more referrals!

All from that print ad that ran for a year or so in a newspaper? Not directly, but definitely indirectly.

OK... I think I wandered off topic, but...

Seolman - print makes sense for certain businesses because of the exact reason you stated - small ads in coffee table magazines that sit around for a long time both in waiting rooms and people's homes get a lot of mileage. The web is the place to be, it's what is up-and-coming, what the younger generation turns to more and more but print isn't dead - not by a long shot.

[SuzanneDIngram]

Good for you!

I always say, "People do their planning at different times than their buying." Just because they haven't bought from you yet, doesn't mean they never will.

This is why in sales you have to always keep following up so that you stay top of mind. Advertising works because you're putting your name in front of people.

A study by SMEI (Sales & Marketing Executives Int'l) revealed that 81% of major sales are closed after the 5th contact. They also found that 80% of people who inquire about a product or service say they will buy it within one year. However, 90% of the time, they end up buying it from another company, not the one they originally inquired with.

Isn't that amazing!? Well, it is to me, because I think these sort of stats are fascinating.