Monday, October 22, 2007
Swatting Flyers
Carrie and I decided to try a new restaurant a few weeks ago, Country Mill had been mentioned to us by a few people and we heard they had a good breakfast buffet. It was good. A decent selection and lots of fresh fruit. This is not a restaurant review! We discovered something on this particular excursion that I would like to comment on.
We ran across something we didn’t expect. A new flyer advertisement called “Helpful Hints.” This large flyer was at Country Mill and sported a few brief articles and several advertisements. Apparently, companies have the opportunity to purchase small ads for $25 per week.
The flyer claims to have 13,000 readers, though the question of readers vs copies printed remains. They claim the ads “always be easily seen” because the ads are printed on the outside edges of the flyer. They seem proud to offer exclusivity in that competing businesses will be blocked from advertising. Sounds strangely familiar. LOL
Then to top it off, someone shared another flyer ad sheet with me the other day that looks very similar to the Helpful Hints sheet though the quality was sorely lacking and the cost was double that of the Hints. I had heard about this one a couple of months ago and my opinion remains, the scheme offers very little to the advertiser, less to the reader and the only beneficiary I can see is the person collecting the weekly checks.
Since we sell advertising through SOKY Happenings magazine, I have become even more aware of advertising methods than when I was purchasing it. What guides our publication is a sincere effort to offer small businesses an effective method of advertising that has staying power and provides a positive image of the business advertising. These two flyers offer very little to the reader other than 10 or 20 ads and the advertiser pay from $100 - $200 per month for a small black and white business card ad. What’s the point? I’m not sure how effective this method would be in the long run.
Please understand; I do not have anything against the Helpful Hints flyer. I don’t even know the people involved. I am just expressing my opinion about the advertising method. By reading their homepage, I can see they have experience in another market and I am convinced they are capable of producing the flyer on a regular basis. I do wish them well and hope they are successful. I’m sorry to say that I cannot offer the same assurance for or about “the other flyer” because of my knowledge of the person behind the effort.
A good friend of mine who publishes a local telephone directory put it best. He says that it doesn’t matter how much the ad costs, what matters is that you profit from the money invested. A $20 ad on a one color sheet of paper may seem cheap, but if it only returns $10, it is not effective. On the other hand, if you spend $600 for 30 seconds on TV and realize a $650 return, that is money better spent. (Again, an over simplification but a good example... consider not only the cost for the advertising, but also the cost of your goods and services before measuring success.)
This is a shortened version of my original post. Since this blog focuses on helping local small business, I thought I would share my thoughts on this method of advertising. In context however, I am a publisher in the same market who also sells advertising. In that light, one might conclude that my opinion is skewed. Perhaps it is. At least I was polite. ;)
~ David Francis
