I love marketing, it is one of my favorite parts of running a business.
Every year I like to try something new- In 2015 it will be newspaper stickers. These stickers go on the very front of the local newspapers in our area. I called early so we got perfect time slots.
In the past, I have run newspaper ads in the classified sections, business card sized ads only. We didn’t get that many calls from them. I had pretty much moved on from newspaper ads, in fact we have not advertised in the newspaper in over 5 years now.
Then this spring I saw a painting company with the stickers and I said wow! These really stick out. Whereas the ads I have put up in the past, the reader would have to be deliberately opening the newspaper to the section just to read ads, this sticker will be right in every reader’s face, in fact, they will have to pull it off to read the front page story!
I think we were quoted somewhere in the neighborhood $70 per thousand readers. What is nice is that every single one of those thousand readers will see our ad (and we are the only sticker not amongst other ads). Whereas in the business classifieds section, what fraction of those readers do you think actually see your ad? 1%? less?
As I reflect back, I think I used to spend $250 on the newspaper ad when I did advertise in it about 5 years ago and this was a big expenditure for me. What is really nice is that since we have grown so much, our marketing budget is now around 20 grand! It is great how money opens the doors to so many opportunities. We are spending $1500 on this campaign which is only a fraction of our overall marketing budget. I have a really good feeling about it.
So needless to say, I am very excited to see the results from this marketing campaign. I will keep you posted.
