When advertising a business serving your local community, most business owners will turn to the local press to get their message out to prospective customers. Now, don’t get me wrong here, local newspapers are a great way of getting new customers, but the problem is that most small businesses do not reap the full benefits of newspaper advertising because thier adverts are almost identical to everyone elses.

To make newspaper advertising effective and to gain the most return on your investment, there are a few things that you should do.

1) Stand out from the crowd - Ok, you’ve been in business for 30 years, so what. Does that really make you any better than the guy whos’ just starting his own new business? Do prospective customers really care that you’ve been in business a long time? The answer to both these questions is a big No! Prospective customers are looking for solutions to their problems, if you can show that you can provide them with the solution, you will get the custom, no matter how long your you’ve been in business.

2) Call them into action - Just putting a phone number on your advert is not a call to action. To call a prospect to action, you need to give them a reason to contact your business. For instance, say you run a car servicing business, a call to action might be “call us now for a free pre-winter checkup”, and make the offer time limited. So your copy might read “call us before Oct 31st for a free pre-winter check up”.

I hear you saying “what’s the point in that, as it’s going to cost me money?” Yes it is going to cost you a bit, but the point is you are making contact with prospective customers and if you do a good job for them, they will remember it and most probably come back to you in the future - not to mention the fact that they’ll tell all their friends about the great service you provided!

3) Use a business website - An alternative to the above is for those businesses with a website (if you don’t have one you could be loosing out even more!). If you have a website for your business, use newspaper advertising to point your prospective customers to the website. By “point” I mean tell the prospect to go to your website to get something, not just have your website address on the advert.

In your advertisement, write something like “go to www.xyz.co.uk to get a free pre-winter check up”. On your website will be a coupon that the prospect can print off and bring to your business when they come (saves you some printing costs!). The website will also give you the opportunity to tell the prospect about your business and how you can provide the solution to their problem.

These are just a few ways that you can improve the response rate of your newspaper advertising and bring more customers to your business. To find out more ways to market your business offline and online, call Tim on 01945 780821 or 07979 864718.