This series on print media advantages and disadvantages started yesterday when I covered three print media advantages. Today’s post will complete my discussion of print media advantages with two more.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantage 4

Print media still provides publicity.

Although increased costs have shrunk news holes and increased the space devoted to advertising, less space is left for press release articles. But as news staffs also shrink, fewer staff members are available to write other types of articles.

Continuing layoffs and downsizing increases the opportunities for well-written press releases that provide newsworthy information. This requires knowing what’s newsworthy and providing it through copy written in Associated Press style, and in objective language.

If your marketing plan includes publicity, print media still provides the opportunity to attract attention.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantage 5

Online versions of print media help to keep online advertising affordable.

This is not so much an advantage of print media as the effect of providing print media content online.

Most print media now have an online version or at least a Web site. All the information placed online by print media keeps a constant stream of fresh new content for searchers. It also keeps down the price of advertising to reach those searchers.

Without print media providing their online versions loads of content, advertising space on good content sites would likely be more expensive. Plus many print media businesses will often provide a special discount if you purchase ad space in their print and online versions. This further keeps online web site advertising inexpensive.

This completes my coverage of print media advantages. My next post will start a look at print media disadvantages.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages –A Preview of Disadvantages

As a preview to print media disadvantages, I provide the following main points.

Print media disadvantages include:

1. It speed compared to online,
2. The inefficiency of less than national,
3. High production costs,
4. Inability to reach young adults,
5. Difficult to track and get accountability statistics.

You can get more on these topics in my next post. Just click the link below:

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages - Not Timely or Efficient

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Posted 11-19-08: Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – 2 More Advantages

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Print media advantages and disadvantages influence modern marketing.

Marketers have long used print media as a stable in marketing campaigns. From free publicity to paid advertising, print media (newspapers, newsletters, and magazines) have long been a marketing mainstay.

But in modern marketing that’s changing. Print media has become more expensive and less effective for modern marketing. This series of posts covers print media advantages and disadvantages in today’s marketing environment.

This first post will cover three advantages related to print media readers.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantages

Print media advantages derive from two main sources.

The first source is the ability to reach a specific target market whose members read print media. Print media advantages 1-3 relate to readers and are covered in today’s post.

The second source includes changes from today’s marketing environment. Print media advantages 3-4 relate to such changes and will be included in my next post.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantage 1

Print media reach older adults.

If your target market is comprised of the WWII and Baby Boomer generations, you can reach them effectively through print media. These generations grew up with print media. Most are more comfortable using print media than online media.

In addition, older Americans like the sensations related to print media. They like the feel of holding and handling the paper. Many like to mark on it and fold it. In fact many will print out information they get from the Internet so they can absorb the information using the sensual learning habits developed when they were in school.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantage 2

Community print media reach homeowners and community leaders.

Media research has long found that people who subscribe to community newspapers are far more inclined to own their homes and to be actively involved in their communities than the general population.

If your business is a local one, you may need to maintain positive relationships with homeowners and community leaders. Homeowners comprise the target market for many small businesses. And people who are actively involved in their communities have extended networks and influence many others.

Thus, the ability to reach community print media readers is a definite advantage.

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – Advantage 3

Print media reach business owners.

Business owners read more print media than the general public. To build successful businesses, they need to know what’s happening in the economic and marketing environments.

Print media provides this information for smaller areas than almost any other media. For example, if you have a brick and motor store in a small town, the community newspaper provides the information that most affects your store.

Business owners also keep up on what’s happening in their industries. Most read business related print media, from association newsletters to magazines that concentrate on individual aspects of running a business.

So if you want to reach business owners, especially older business owners, you can through print media.

These three advantages of print media relate to readers. Two more relate to changes in today’s marketing environment and will be included in the next post in this series. You can access it below:

Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages – 2 More Advantages

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Posted 11-17-08: Print Media Advantages And Disadvantages
For Marketing - Readers

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Learning to research web site traffic isn’t complicated if you follow five steps.

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 1 – Set Up A Google Analytics Account

Your first step in researching your web site traffic is to set up a way to monitor it. There are several paid and free traffic monitors available, but I recommend Google Analytics. It’s free and collects lots of statistics.

For example, it reveals the number of visitors that you’re getting from search engines, from direct traffic, and from referring sites. You need this information to monitor which sources you’re doing well with and for which you need to increase your efforts.

It also provides the keywords used when the search engines send visitors to your site, and the pages that get the most traffic. Furthermore, it provides bounce rate and other revealing information that can guide you in improving your site and its content.

So if you haven’t already established a Google Analytics account, do it today so you can start gathering information to research web site traffic.

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 2 – Record Your Visitors At Least Monthly

Although you’ll be analyzing your web site traffic monthly, don’t wait until the first of the month to get started. Start now. Then you can analyze monthly from your start date, or you can use whatever days you have during your first month and start a new month on the first.

For example, I started on the 23rd, analyzed the 23rd through the 31st as my first month and started a new month with the 1st. But I could have considered the 23rd of my first month to the 22nd of the next month as one month. I choose to stick to calendar months, but either method works.

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 3 – Determine Visitor Statistics

You’ll need to determine at least the range, mean, and high and low number of visitors per day for your site. The mode and medium can also be helpful, but not as much.

Now don’t freak about these statistical terms. They are really simple as the definitions and instructions below illustrate:

High - the most number of visitors that you got for any one day. Just look for the highest number and record it as your high. The high for my visitors in October was 139, the top number in the list.

Low - the least number of visitors that you got for any one day. Look for the lowest number and record it as your low. The low for my visitors in October was 51, the bottom number in the list.

Range - the low to the high. Your range for any month will be from your lowest number to your highest number. My range for October was 51 to 139.

Mean – the average number of visitors per day. To get the mean just add up the number per day and divide by the number of days.

Median – this is the middle number in your range. You just list every number and every occurrence of it from high to low. Your list will look much like the one provided here. Divide the number of days by two, and then count until you get to the middle number. My mean for October was 90

Mode – The most common number. In my list four numbers appear twice. Because none appear more than the others, there really is no mode in this small sample.

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 4 – Graph Your Visitors By Traffic Sources

Many programs enable you to produce graphs or charts. I find Microsoft Word’s chart function to work well, and used it to produce the two charts below. Just experiment to assure that you are putting your numbers in the data worksheet correctly for your program.

For example, to get the charts below, I had to record the visitor numbers across rows for each source of traffic. When there are so many numbers, my inclination is to put them into columns. But word won’t produce the chart correctly if I do.

Notice that each traffic source has it’s own line. This enables you to quickly see where your traffic comes from and where you need to pursue more traffic. For example, the charts below visually demonstrate that I don’t get enough direct and referral traffic. My search traffic is growing, and that’s good, but over reliance on any one source of traffic is not.

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 5 – Analyze The Results

You can use actual numbers as the charts below do, or you can use percentages as I did for my September web site traffic analysis. You can read it by clicking on the prior link to see how your analysis using percentages will differ from your analysis using actual numbers below:

Research Web Site Traffic: Step 6 – Compare Months To Determine Growth

One month of research on your web site traffic will help you, but you’ll learn most by comparing months, and keeping records across months. For example, statistics and the charts for September and October reveal that my total traffic and search traffic increased from September to October. But my referral and direct traffic decreased.

Charts reveal this information visually, while statistics reveal it verbally and mathematically. You may find one or the other more helpful, but I like to use both information and statistics. Below is my verbal comparison of September’s and October’s most important visitor statistics:

September brought two days with 165 visitors, and another three days with100 or more visitors (128, 104 and 100). Daily visits ranged from a low of 44 to the high of 165, with a mean of 85 visitors per day.

October brought twice as many 100+ visitor days. Twelve days produced more than 100 visitors compared to September’s five days. Still the high for October was lower than for September. The low (51), and the average visitor per day (92) were also higher.

I could do a similar analysis for each traffic source, but I think you get the idea. If not, please feel free to leave a comment with your questions. I’ll try to get back to you quickly.

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Posted 11-12-08: How To Research Web Site Traffic

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Just as the marketing research process is time-consuming if you do it yourself. It’s quite expensive to hire a marketing agency to do it for you.

Agency personnel involved in the marketing research process are professionals. Researchers usually have at least a master’s degree and substantial research experience. So their time isn’t cheap. Plus, you’ll have an account executive assigned to you, who will also rack up billable hours.

So depending on where you live, you’re looking at a hefty agency bill for working through the marketing research process that I described in my last post.

Some small business owners don’t think they can afford to spend time nor money on the marketing research process. Plus a few small business owners don’t understand the importance of marketing research. They’d rather spend their money on tactics. Even if the tactics don’t work, they feel like they get more for their money.

The truth is that time and money spent through the marketing research process is a great investment because it saves you from wasting resources on ineffective tactics. Money spent on target marketing research is a particularly good investment because it keeps you from wasting marketing resources on people who aren’t ever going to buy what you sell.

Still if you don’t have the money to invest, you don’t have the money to invest. As my Daddy used to say “You can’t get blood from a turnip.” So what do you do? I’ve got the answer for you.

I offer a FREE, customized target market analysis. It will get you started with your marketing research process. To get your FREE target market analysis, complete the form below:

When you confirm your information, you’ll be given a user name, password and link to the instant target market page.

You choose demographic options from five drop-down menus, hit the submit button and instantly get your report. It will list the best appeals for your target market and for some, it’ll also list the best media, additional demographic information, income, buying behavior, and more.

Each target market analysis is customized so yours may not provide all this information, but it’s sure to give you more information than you’ve ever known about your target market. It’s instant and doesn’t cost anything. It’s the cheapest and easiest way to start a marketing research process.

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Why Is Target Marketing Important?

Posted 11-3-08: The Marketing Research Process:
Time Consuming, Expensive?

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This post on marketing research and development, is the third in a series. It covers developing a profitable and marketable product, and marketing your product.

But before you’re ready to take these steps in the marketing research and development process, you first need to take the first four steps. You can access posts related to them below:

Marketing Research And Development 1 – Steps 1 and 2

Marketing Research And Development 2 – Steps 3 and 4

Marketing Research And Development: Developing a Profitable and Marketable Product

After completing you marketing research from the first four steps, you’ll have a good idea of what you’re product will be like. So now you have to make a “go or “no go” decision.

To make this decision, you need a firm estimate of what you product will cost per unit and solid research to determine what you can sell for. You should have gotten price information from your survey. No you have to get some bids to determine cost information.

Don’t get bids for more units of the product than you believe you can sell during start-up.

You’re going to need lots of money for marketing and distribution. So don’t tie up all your funds in product development and build an inventory that becomes a liability if you don’t sell it quickly.

If the difference between what it costs you and what you can sell it for isn’t enough to cover production, marketing, distribution and overhead, you must make a “no go” decision.

I know it’s hard to put so much time and money into researching a product and then decide not to produce it. But that’s not nearly as hard on your business as having an inventory that you can’t sell at a profit.

If you determine that you can make a profit, you make a “go” decision and proceed to have your product developed.

Marketing Research And Development: Marketing Your Product

Once you’ve made your “go” decision, you need to develop a marketing plan and campaign. You conducted much of your marketing research during the first four steps. Now you need to incorporate that research in your marketing planning and your first marketing campaign.

In fact you may need multiple campaigns: one for potential customers, another for retailers and distributors, and perhaps another for supporters and influencers.

Many businesses start their first consumer marketing campaign while the product is still in production because they believe creating the demand before the supply is provided helps to get distributors and retailers for their products.

I think it a better idea to target your distributors and retailers with your first marketing campaign. For instance, you can advertise in industry journals, send salespeople out to meet retailers and to persuade them to carry your product.

You can offer them exclusivity within a geographical area and include their shops in your first commercial marketing campaign.

All campaigns are included in your marketing plan, but require unique research and planning within each campaign.

With the right marketing planning, the right campaigns targeted at various target markets, and good financial decisions, your product should be a success – thanks to following the six steps in the marketing research and development process.

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Posted 10-22-06: Marketing Research And Development 3

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