Marketing your business with newspaper inserts

Marketing is one of the most important tasks of your company. Make sure you get your message across.

A great way to do this is to use newspaper inserts in your ad campaign.

First, decide where you are going to advertise. I use the smaller weekly papers instead of the larger dailies. Weekly newspapers are usually much cheaper.

My weekly newspaper only charges about $40.00 for 1000 inserts.

Another reason to use inserts is that you can target specific zip codes.

For example, in ZIP code 78209, you run an ad focused on businesses, while you run an ad targeted at residential customers in ZIP code 78248.

This is a powerful method of targeting your marketing messages.

The benefits don’t stop there! With a display ad, you only get a small space to promote your products or services. With the inserts you get all the space you need.

You can produce a single duplex page or a multi-page insert. Which do you think has the best chance of getting your message across to the most customers?

All display ads look the same

To me, almost all display ads look the same. How do you make your message stand out from the crowd? Use bold text, borders, and large headlines to draw attention to your ad. However, they still have to compete with any other ads in their section.

featured inserts

All of these tactics work with inserts, but you have much less competition.

Tip: Use colored paper to make your insert stand out even more!

How do you use inserts to promote your business?

1. Select the markets you want to target and develop the insert targeting that particular market segment.

2. Locate those markets by zip code.

3. Print the inserts at your local print shop.

4. Give your inserts to the newspaper and they will insert them in newspapers going to the zip codes you select.

For my company, a typical push campaign looks like this. Five thousand inserts divided between three zip codes. Each zip code receives a specific message printed on bright gold paper with black ink.

The cost is around $80.00 per thousand. Forty dollars for the newspaper and $40.00 to print the inserts. I write my own ad copy. Total cost is approximately $400.00 per run.

My experience is that I get much better performance from inserts than display ads.

The key to an effective marketing campaign is targeting your customers with multiple exposures. One shot marketing just isn’t enough!

Tip: Create an insert that gives your customers the information they want to keep for later reference. Consider a short information brochure to accomplish this. An 11 x 17-inch sheet of paper makes an inexpensive yet effective four-page brochure! See my article Marketing Your Business With Tips Booklets.