There is little doubt that the delivery and sharing of information has seen some gargantuan changes in the last few years. There wouldn’t be many people who await the arrival of a brochure in the mail, to begin researching a future purchase. Some still do- but the point to take away here, is that the internet and search engine optimisation have changed the way people find, access and take in information.
A little further down this article you’ll read a true story about someone who threw a whole lot of money into print advertising.
More than a year has passed since that piece was written, and the news isn’t good.
Thousands of dollars were spent on print advertising, and not one call came from the ad.
The information gathering and fulfilment landscape has changed for ever.
Sometimes you cannot believe what you’re hearing. Once someone dropped by my office, to ask what I thought of an ad he’d just written. I mentioned that it looked a lot like a print ad, before I began pointing out the short-comings within the advertisement itself. Then the staggering revelation came- it was a print ad- and it was going in a throw-over. A “throw-over” is sometimes known as a “local paper”. Local papers are often free- and thrown over someone’s fence by the delivery people.
This advertisement was costing the person ninety dollars per week… and when I asked whether or not he thought it was a wise thing to do, he replied “Yes, because nobody else is advertising my service in that paper”.
So either his competitors haven’t heard of the local paper, or they’ve realised the action is on the internet.
You decide.
Then we moved on to the advertisement itself.
The most important part of any advertisement would have to be the headline. Poised in the prime real estate of the block- at the top- it has the unenviable task of selling the ad to the casual browser.
I asked this fellow why his company name was the headline.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asks. Not a whole lot is right with it actually- what does this particular headline promise the reader? What enticement is there to dig further and read the advertisement?
None.
And to make it worse, his company name is not an easy, fluid name to read. It’s not an inviting one.
But he likes it. It’s a great name- and advertisement- for him to read over and over again, to himself, and perhaps his mum.
They are the only people who will take any notice of it.
Folks, the action is on the internet. With millions of people using the net every minute of every day, your website needs a presence. You need to be found, and found easily for the services or products you provide to the world. Get your website sorted, get some seo in place, and enjoy the benefits.
Back to my friend.
He has a website, which he and his brother slaved over for ages, a number of years ago, and never got quite right. The code is messy, there are lots of things wrong with it from a user’s perspective and well as search engine optimisation. They can’t see the need to fix the problems.
The website is ripe for harvest. A few years old, a stable internet presence, ready to be ramped up a few levels.
And he’s advertising in the local paper.
When I asked him “why so many ads, over such an extended period”, he replied:
“Because people might come back to it later”.
When would they come back- after they’ve wrapped up the vegetable peel in the kitchen in the throw-over, throw-away paper, noticed the ad, and removed all the rubbish from the wrapping, joined together the torn bits, and sat down to read it all very carefully?
Oh dear. You can’t help some people. They have to want to help themselves, or be helped.
Let marketing professionals handle your marketing. Use our enquiry form for a free assessment of where your internet marketing is at. Don’t get used as vegetable peel wrapper! Put your efforts into a great website, and get expert seo help. You’ll never need the local paper again.