Earlier in the year, Ape Red Media did some local advertising in Romsey & Wellow Gazette, the Totton Gazette and the Eastleigh Gazette. All three publications produced enquiries and work, easily paying for the adverts and resulting in profit, however they raised a question.
Why did they work? Google Adwords has proven very successful for Ape Red Media along with our natural listing for local searches, ie. Web design Romsey, and 2010 has seen a steady stream of work. Our biggest client however found us by our natural listing on Google.
So why does local advertising material like the Gazette continue to work alongside the Goliath that is Google, while the Yellow pages would appear to have suffered over the last few years with the markets reducing it’s share price from circa £4 3 years ago, to circa 20p, although in the last three months 20p has dropped to 10p.
Well my thoughts are as follows; the Romsey & Wellow Gazette, the Totton Gazette and the Eastleigh Gazette as my examples are delivered onto the doormat every month. Everyone old enough to know what an advert is knows what the Gazettes contain along with their editorial content. They repeatedly fall into local hands, month after month. In comparison to the Yellow Pages, or the BT directory the adverts in this local advertising medium are delivered into a local businesses local market 12 times a year rather than just once. Secondly the A4 or A5 Gazette is around 40 pages and easily flicked through in comparison to 2lb 10oz 1000 page Yellow tome. Convenience being king these days, the Romsey and Wellow Gazette wins hands down. And convenience being the key here, their adverts find their way into the hands of the local population without them switching on their computer and making a search.
And what intrigues me is Ape Red Media advertises business to business where as the Gazettes mainly land on the doorsteps of the domestic population, so if they work for Ape Red Media as a web design business, they must work for businesses advertising into the domestic market.
(That’s not to say the Yellow pages isn’t used though, I do use it, but it hasn’t generated Ape Red Media any business where as the Gazette has. And Yell.com after a £500 plus spend didn’t generate a single enquiry, 1 Google Adwords Campaign at less than half the spend generated 4 jobs. But I’m getting off the subject.)
What followed later in the year for Ape Red Media was great. The Gazettes needed a local web design business to take over the design of their sites, and guess who they called! Local advertising? Does it work, I think we are a perfect example that yes it does!
