A Case Study in Newspaper Advertising for Small Business
by Stuart Livesey
This study is shared with you with the full permission of our client.
Here in the town in Australia where we live and work there are three free papers delivered to every home each week. There's also a paid daily newspaper.
Most of the advertising in these newspapers comes from small business but many of those small businesses will tell you that, while advertising rates are going up, sales from those ads are going down. In fact the computer shop that my partner is involved in ran a half page ad late last year that cost around $450.00 and sold just one $5.00 mouse as a result of that ad.
So I was given the challenge of doing better with the same sized ad.
The local situation
Here in town the local papers provide a copywriting service for any small business that wants to advertise in their paper. The copywriting is rudimentary to say the least and usually consists of trying to fit in as much copy as they can into the space the advertiser has purchased. Here is a perfect example of what the paper usually produces.
This ad is around 5.75 inches x 3.75 inches - or 104.5mm x 95mm
The ad that our client put into the paper last year was handled entirely by the newspaper. It certainly wasn't as crowded as the add above but it did contain a lot of information and a lot of images.
The competition
Here in town there are currently four small repair and custom computer builders with shop fronts. There are also at least four mobile repairers. At the time my client advertised last year there were six small repair shops and four mobile repairers.
A large number of the mobile repairers have a very poor reputation and several of the shop front repair and custom builders also have/had a poor reputation when it comes to repairs and maintenance.
Some don’t even bother trying to repair the computers that people bring in. Instead they tell the customer that parts are no longer available (even though they're available) and the customer should buy a new computer.
The target market
There are approximately 53,000 people in Hervey Bay. Many of those are baby-boomers who have come to Hervey Bay for the climate and the lifestyle. A large proportion of them are computer users. However, there are very few power users here in Hervey Bay and many of those that could be described as power users already use the services offered by our client.
The challenge for us
The challenge for us was to get as many readers to see, read and respond to the ad as possible. To do that I had to produce an ad that resonated with them and their needs.
I should also point out that the newspaper was offering a special deal on the ad and my client could not specify where the ad would appear.
Our Approach
This ad had to be something that jumped off the page at the reader and it had to be easy for them to understand. We weren’t targeting the few power users in town; we were targeting the ordinary people who don’t really understand too much about computers.
So we needed a headline and one that actually stood out and resonated with the reader. We nailed it in three words.
We also wanted to avoid images – this was going to use the text as both decoration and to impart information. We used one image to help instil confidence in the readers.
We wanted to tell the reader why our client could do what others could not and why they shouldn’t listen to the competition who only wanted to take their money for a new computer.
We also wanted to tell people that if they really did want a new computer then our client could build it for them. Finally we wanted to add to the confidence that the image might promote, we wanted to issue a call to action and we wanted to tell them where to come to.
We achieved that in about 117 words – I really wanted to use fewer words but I didn’t have a lot of time to get the ad ready for publication and so I basically had to run with my first draft.
Our failure Nothing is perfect. As soon as we saw the ad published I realised I had made two mistakes.
The paper did not use the font sizes that I had intended for lines 5 through 7 and lines 10 through 14. I had intended the font on those lines to be slightly smaller and even though the copy that was provided to the paper reflected those changes in font size I failed to make it plain to the paper that the font size was important.
The second mistake is on lines 8 and 9. The ad was not aimed at power users and yet those two lines talk to people who are more advanced computer users than the target audience. “… your specifications” leave the people who don’t know what they want/need in a computer with nowhere to go.
The end result
The ad appeared on a Friday on page 36 – a page towards the rear of the paper.
I am now writing this four days later and the response has been overwhelming. Our client is seeing more new customers than he has ever seen before. He has more computers coming in for repair every day. As I write this he has had four new customers bring their machines in for repair in the last hour.
He doesn’t know how he is going to keep up with the demand and he can’t believe that we could do what the paper couldn’t do last year.
Update
It's now 24 days since the ad appeared in the local newspaper. Our client continues to see a steady stream of new people coming into his business. He estimates that in immediate dollar terms the ad has brought in at least $5,000 in additional revenue.
The lessons to be learned
I’m sorry but I’ve never been one to spoon-feed anyone. The lessons that you should be able to learn from this are obvious if you think about it but just to get you started let me suggest three.
Appeal to your target audience where they are at. Appeal to their needs and do it with a short hard-hitting headline – not line after line of waffle.
Speak to them in words they understand not in rubbish that has little or no meaning for them. Be clear in your message and don’t hint – hints can be missed (just ask my wife).
Don’t be afraid of white space in your ads. White space is good – if you use it effectively you will get your message across much more clearly.
Read more about our thoughts on small business here
