Traditional forms of
advertising include newspapers, radio, and television. Some problems with
these mediums are high costs, time consumption, and ineffective response.
A. Newspapers - including coupon mailers, flyers, brochures, etc.
The overhead for a
company to produce a newspaper is considerable. Among attributing factors
are operation of printing presses, salaries for writers, editors, and
other employees, and lastly distribution.
Generally speaking, a
budget minded business owner will devote a great deal of time and effort
to create coupons or other ads for their business. This cuts the cost of
hiring someone to design a layout for printed advertising. In some cases,
however, the layout and design of the ad is included in the cost of
publishing; even a business that does their own design is charged the same
amount as a business which does not. Many times the business owner chooses
the full service option for this reason. The problem is that this option
gives little control to the business owner, in terms of presentation. This
lack of control can eventually lead to problems like non-uniform image; a
position from which it is extremely difficult to brand the business name
in the marketplace.
Many business owners become
frustrated with ineffective response to ads or coupon promotions. The cost
ratio of producing the new customer is very high, and for this reason,
many businesses no longer use this medium. Part of the problem is that
sometimes a lack of market research is done by the business owner prior to
publishing ads. Newspapers reach a broad based market, rather than
targeting the market of that particular business. In addition, there are
so many publications available, it can be difficult to choose which one is
best suited for your business needs. Even for the market savvy business
owner, these can be tough obstacles to overcome. But wait- it gets worse!
Overcoming these obstacles is only half the battle; the larger problem is
grabbing the attention of the readers with anything short of a full page
color ad, which again can be extremely expensive, especially in a paper
with a large circular. In order to help combat these problems and focus on
the target market, many businesses print business cards, flyers, and
brochures. However, the distribution of these items is normally dependant
upon the store front operation of the business itself; customers coming
into the establishment benefit from these items, but note that it is the
customers all ready coming in- not new customers. Sometimes customers pass
these items along as word of mouth advertising. Though word of mouth is
the greatest credible form of advertising that can be achieved, a business
must have a large customer base to truly develop an impact. Also, most of
these items offer little information about the business itself; quite
simply a name, address, and telephone number.
The more information that is
available to the consumer about a particular business, the greater the
odds are that they will enter the establishment. As difficult as it is for
a business to brand its name in the marketplace, the larger problem is the
lack of information about the business provided to the consumer.
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