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The Strategic Role Newspaper Advertising Plays in Lead Generation
Lead generation in newspaper advertising is critically important to your success as a business. You need to gain customers to grow your business, and there is no other way to do it than to advertise your business and showcase the benefits of your brand. If you are looking for tips for lead generation through newspaper ads or simply want general guidelines for newspaper advertising, here’s what you need to know.
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Tips for Lead Generation through Newspaper Ads
Designed with a Clear Purpose
Successful newspaper ads are designed with a specific strategy and goal. An aimless ad won’t do you any good, so be sure that your intentions are clear. Do you want to get your customers to visit your online store? Do you want them to redeem a coupon at your brick-and-mortar store? Do you want them to subscribe to your service on a monthly or annual basis? Do you want them to call you for more information? Be sure that your ad clearly defines your purpose and shows your reader how to get in touch with you.
Create Buyer Personas and Revisit Them
For your ad campaign to be successful, you must maintain insight into who your typical customer is and what his or her needs are. Revisit your buyer personas at least once every quarter (monthly at best) to ensure that your message is fresh and relevant.
Establish Your Authority in Your Space
Your newspaper ad campaign does more than provide a means to sell your products or services. It also helps you establish yourself as a trustworthy source in your industry. Using newspaper ads allows you to educate your prospects on your business, and it establishes you as a reputable brand that your market looks to for insights and expertise.
Targeted for a Specific Audience
There are very few products that connect with all audiences, and chances are you aren’t one of them. For most brands out there, there is a specific audience that buys into their offers more than others. Aim to target a specific audience with your offer. It will help you focus on your purpose for the ad, and will help you get direct leads from people who can become lifelong customers.
Ask Your Customers to Act
It’s important to make your call to action (CTA) clear in your ad. There’s no point in making your ad engaging and irresistible if your customers don’t know what to do with the information. Don’t bury this information by making the font too small or disguising it in the graphics.
Follow these guidelines:
- Layout: Keep it simple to allow the message to come through clearly.
- Headlines: These are essential to creating a successful ad. Make this powerful and catchy to draw in your readers and stand out on the page.
- White Space: Use this wisely—don’t cram in too much information.
- Type: Make sure your font is easy to read, but stands out from the rest of the copy in the newspaper.
- Images: Use high-quality, professional images that clearly communicate your message.
- Colour: This feature boosts ad response rates by almost 40% so it may be worth investing in.
Strategic Roles of Newspaper Ads for Lead Generation
Affinity
Affinity brings shoppers closer to a brand. It establishes a personal or emotional connection between the consumer and the advertiser. Newspaper ads are the perfect platform for presenting affinity because ideas can be communicated in a more personal way through writing.
(Re)Appraisal
This type of advertising surprises and challenges readers by presenting your brand in a unique, unpredictable way, causing them to rethink their initial ideas. (Re)Appraisal ads can take the form of an announcement, brand launch, or a new angle on an existing brand or product.
Information
Your newspaper ad needs to provide new and additional information about your brand, product, or service to intrigue your readers. Newspapers provide an assortment of spaces that allow you to present your offer and explain its benefits. Depending on the format you choose, your ad can be lengthy or short.
Call to Action
Whether you’re promoting a sale or a new product, you will need to ensure your ad has a CTA. This piece of information shows your reader how they can act on your ad. It’s more than listing the price—it also prompts the reader to visit your web site or online store, or change their current behavior, etc.
Public Agenda
These types of ads spread awareness for a particular issue or cause. This includes raising the profile of a brand, issue, or cause, or leverage a current topic that is being publicly debated. From brand ethics and corporate strategy to environment and charity causes, there are a variety of options for public agenda ads.
How Macromark Can Help You
Do you need help using newspaper ads for lead generation? Are you curious about the strategic role of newspaper advertising? All this information and guidance is available at your fingertips when you contact us. At Macromark, we specialize in helping our clients create strong, effective, successful magazine ad campaigns. Our variety of services can be customized to suit your business goals, and we have packages that can work with a range of budgets. No matter the size of your organization, we can help you target your audience, retain customers, and build your reputation among your audience as a company they can trust.
If you need help catching the eyes of your readers and establishing an effective newspaper advertising campaign, consider working with our print advertising agency. Our services also include direct mail marketing, list brokerage, data solutions, list fulfillment, and list management. For more information about how we can help grow your business, contact us at 1-(845)-230-6300.
David Klein