A quick search of the term "Newspaper Advertising" reveals poor numbers online. Have services like Kijiji and Craigslist taken up the space that classified newspaper ads once presented? Many newspaper ads have grown too passive. In our online world, we are constantly engaged, and we often don't respond to calls to action. Many people also avoid newspapers in general because of the number of ads in them. So the question becomes: how can newspapers still gain advertising dollars? The answer is marketing automation.
Marketing automation and a little bit of innovation in newspaper advertising can improve your efforts and your advertising revenue. We're going to show you five ways you can do this quickly and easily, without spending a great deal more on advertising, and perhaps even less.
1. Direct Email Advertising
Instead of displaying all your ads passively, allow customers to select a specific set of ads they want to see, and email them the listings for that day. Alternatively, you can send out automated emails whenever a new ad goes up in those categories. This way, customers are actively engaged in your advertising process, and they are sure to be seeing only the things they want to.
2. Featured Ads
Once a week, set up a series of five featured ads paid to run for the week, and automate them to go up on your social media pages every day. This will boost the visibility of the ads, and readers will see it pop up in their feed. This brings the ads to readers, instead of hoping that the reader comes to them. If you worry about over-saturating readers with one type of classified ad, split them up and do a different industry each day. You can even have a social media page specifically for classifieds.
3. Enhance Your Ads Page
Typically, ads in newspapers are a grid format: boring to look at and hard to read. So have your customers send in an image or graphically designed ad that shows a little more character, or a picture of what they're selling. This is a good way to ensure that customers find it easy to read your classified section. Separate ads also make it easy to pick out ads to put on a social media page or in an email.
4. Start Doing Video Content
As I mentioned in a previous post, video marketing is on the rise in a huge way. Take advantage of that. Offer video ads that can be posted on social media or sent via direct link to potential buyers. This way, you get an interactive, engaging and interesting medium for the message, and you also increase the amount of time a customer spends on your page. This could lead to purchases, increased ad revenue, or even gains in other parts of your business as users navigate your web page.
5. Consider Running Your Classifieds as an Online Store
One suggestion is to run an online store through the newspaper. For large, internationally read papers, this is a distinct possibility in the traditional sense. For smaller ones, however, the paper might consider a more local approach where local vendors can sell their wares for a time. Both options give readers a place to find the vendors and products they want.
Something needs to shake up the online newspaper advertising world, and as online newspapers become the norm, advertising needs to appeal to an online crowd. Check out how our marketing automation platform can help your advertising.
Online newspapers also offer the advantage of environmentally friendly branding options. Interested in how you can help your marketing go greener? Check out our blog on how to connect with an increasingly environmentally conscious market.
