• Subscribe

Browse by Category

Add your Article

Promo & Advertising on the Internet - Going Digital from Print Media
20 Jul 09 - By J. McKay
Share/Bookmark

Promo & Advertising on the Internet - Going Digital from Print Media

For those who are unfamiliar with web advertising or who have been using their promo budgets mainly or entirely on paper and ink advertising...


PROMO & MARKETING - WHAT'S THE POINT?

Promotion is about reaching out and presenting your message. It’s inherently about getting your communication out to as large an audience as possible (within desired demographics) and increasing the potential number of people receiving it.

There is much to be said for the power of continued presence in advertising and promotion. A business that consistently places ads in visible locations becomes known as the business that is there…

This sort of promotion, making your business known and establishing its presence, should not be confused with direct marketing and sales. Recognition, familiarity and goodwill do result in new business, but even more importantly, they result in word of mouth.

WHY PROMOTE ON THE INTERNET? GOING DIGITAL FROM PRINT MEDIA

In the U.S., over 220 million people (72.5% of the population) use the internet regularly. According to Nielson Online, in Feb. 2009, the average home user spent 32 hours online visiting 62 sites and viewing over 1,500 pages. In the same time frame, the average work or business user spent 76 hours visiting
119 sites. This is A LOT of traffic!

It is an accepted fact that internet use, e-commerce and electronic media are experiencing exponential growth globally and traditional methods of doing business are falling by the wayside as owners scramble to keep up.

Some newspapers and magazines are moving onto the web, partially or entirely, while others are closing their doors or facing bankruptcy. With the wildfire expansion of the internet, readers have access to the same information instantly and usually for free. And, more importantly, newspapers and magazines are unable to compete with the advertising rates and proven, verifiable traffic on the Internet.

TRUTH IN PROMOTION - COMPARING PRINT MEDIA & WEB SITE ADVERTISING

When using any media resource to assist in your promotion, it’s wise to check what the ACTUAL reach is of the vehicle you’ve chosen. Advertising and promo space, both on the internet and in print, are priced based on the number of viewers or readers the resource can actually deliver to the advertiser. Pricing structures are further refined by the ability to deliver particular demographics in a volume desirable to the advertiser.

Any media resource or outlet charging for advertising space should be able to provide a circulation audit (accounting and verification of actual circulation and distribution) or traffic report to existing and potential advertisers. Frequently, this information is on a rate card. A circulation audit or traffic report enables the advertiser to compare and evaluate advertising opportunities and to weigh the costs against the potential of reaching their target audience in volume.

A web site has analytics software (a program that assists in gathering and analyzing data about site usage) that reports exact statistics of traffic to the site. This includes the number of people visiting, new or returning visitors, what they are looking at, how they arrived at the site (search engine, direct to site, etc.), the amount of time spent, the number of pages viewed, and so on. These stats are available (in minutia!) up to the minute and are always current and verifiable.

A newspaper or magazine can and should get circulation audits done regularly (by a reputable audit firm) to determine and verify their actual circulation, distribution, readership and demographics. A problem that arises with circulation audits is they take several months to accomplish - this means that by the time the audit is complete, the data is months old. Comparatively, internet stats are instant!

One interesting thing to consider in comparing print media to web site advertising is that any ad on a printed page or a web page may or may not be seen or read by the viewer. Print media can only report the estimated number of readers who were given a page, but not if anybody ever saw it. With web analytics, reports can tell you exactly how many people actually looked at any given page on any given day or week, etc. and how much time those people spent on that page. Further, analytics can report on the number of clicks an ad receives which translates into actual interest and reach.

So, decisions for promotion based on estimates of how much outflow might occur should be arrived at upon review of the actual data on the outflow that does occur. For print, the number of copies only gives a number of copies and from there an estimate is determined of the POTENTIAL readership.

The number of actually printed issues is a good way to estimate how many will go out. Then, consider that a certain percentage of printed issues will never leave the counter or shelf once distributed. And, remember, this doesn’t take into account how many people actually look at ads or notices rather than simply leafing through the mag or just reading specific articles.

Consider that in comparison to the exact statistical information available through web site interaction where every visit, page view and click is counted and tracked.

QUESTIONS TO ASK:

For WEB SITE ADVERTISING: traffic fluctuations (peaks and lows -weekly, monthly), # of views on certain pages, # of pages viewed, visitor/member demographics, new and returning visitor percentages, actual traffic stats available to advertisers for their own ads….

For NEWSPAPER or MAGAZINE ADVERTISING: circulation audit - when was the audit completed, how was the audit done, who did it, actual # printed, # subscriptions, # of subscribers receiving more than one copy, distribution calculations, readership demographics including the date of the demographic survey, method of distribution, are you really getting the traffic you’re being charged for…..

References (copy & paste to your browser)::
http://www.businessdictionary.com/
http://www.webopedia.com/
http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/
http://www.nielsen-online.com/
Circulation Verification Council http://www.cvcaudit.com/
Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.accessabc.com/
Certified Audit of Circulations http://www.certifiedaudit.com/

DEFINITIONS: Distribution, Circulation, Number Printed, Unique Visits, etc.

DISTRIBUTION - Estimate of the number of people reached with any one issue, determined by a formula considering the estimated number of people expected to read each issue. Publications often use a multiplier of 1.2 - 2.0 (and sometimes as much as 6x - the national average is 1.75) for every issue to estimate the distribution number. This is also known as readership or “pass along rate”.
CIRCULATION - Number of copies sold or delivered to subscribers.
NUMBER PRINTED - Actual number of copies printed of any one issue.

PRINT MEDIA EXAMPLE - For one month: 10,000 copies printed, 4,000 are sent to subscribers and 6,000 are placed for free pickups. 75% of the subscribers (3,000) actually look at it and pass it along so that each copy is read by an estimated 3 people (national average is 1.75). Of the 6,000 free copies, an estimated 5,000 are picked up, read and passed along to 2 more people. Print # = 10,000, Circulation = 9,000, Distribution/Readership = 24,000 estimated per issue, (Regarding demographics, only the original 4,000 can be potentially surveyed while the majority of the distribution /readership are unverified and unknown).
QUESTION: How many people saw your ad? Answer: ????

UNIQUE VISITS - The number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to a web site for a specified time period - verified by actual records of arrivals to the site.
VIEWS - The number of times a page is seen. (Roughly equivalent to a page turn in a newspaper or magazine).
CLICK THROUGH - The actual number of people clicking on an ad or link - verified count.
HITS - A single web-page typically consists of multiple (often dozens) of files, each of which is counted as a hit as the page is downloaded, so the number of hits is really more reflective of the complexity of the individual pages than the site’s actual popularity. The number of visitors or page views provides a more realistic and accurate assessment of traffic and popularity. The number of hits is frequently cited to assert popularity, but this number is extremely misleading and dramatically over-estimates popularity. (“Hits”, as a stat, is sometimes used to mean Visits – it’s wise to clarify the exact calculation used to determine the number of hits claimed).

WEB SITE EXAMPLE - For one month: 10,000 visits to the site, 9,500 viewed the page containing your ad for more than 45 seconds (no estimates, stats verified as actual).
QUESTION: How many people saw your ad? Answer: 9,500….

SUMMARY

Establishing and maintaining a brand presence within your desired demographic area or group will result in the recognition, familiarity and goodwill that lead to increased business. This is accomplished by virtue of “being there” (long enough to be considered a stable terminal) and by “communicating” (what you are offering and the benefits).

Of course, in the end it all comes down to results and the actual cost over time to achieve those results. Advertisers should calculate the exchange received from an ad or other promotion not only in terms of immediate response, sales or cost per reach, but in terms of the recognition, familiarity and goodwill established or continued.

Selecting the appropriate combination of media vehicles for your advertising and promotion is part of the “magic of marketing”. Knowing what you are actually getting for your advertising dollars will help you to plan and manage your promo campaigns so that your communication gets out to as large an audience as possible within your desired demographics, and leads to an increasing number of people receiving it — Which is the point…



©2009 TheRazzLine.net Notice Board. All Rights Reserved.




Advertisers

computerguyla-articlesMyBusConsult-ArticleBIZYellowbrickarticlebiz$

Dynamic Advantages, Inc.

Bookkeeping & Accounting

Custom, tailored services

Dynamic Advantages

Buy a link »




© 2008 - 2010 TheRazzLine®.net