Get your press ads working

If you read the blizzard of stories on the internet, you could be forgiven for thinking that advertising in newspapers is crazy. Despite that, Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun’s readership is still 579,000, and Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph is 900,000. Are all the marketing managers of all the companies advertising in those papers stupid? Are they throwing money down the drain? We don’t think so.

Many of our practices are getting results from print advertising. So if you’ve tried the local paper and were not happy with the results, perhaps it’s not the paper that’s dead. Perhaps it’s just that you don’t do it well. Print advertising is traditional medium, and traditional rules can still apply.

The AIDA model of print advertising dates back to American advertising and sales pioneer E St Elmo Lewis, in 1903.

“The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it.

If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement”. This was later clarified and developed into four steps:

• Awareness - Consumers become aware of a product, service or brand.
• Interest - Consumers become interested by learning about the benefits & how it fits them.
• Desire - Consumers develop a favourable disposition towards the brand.
• Action - Consumers form a purchase intention, trial or purchase.

Think of this model as a funnel with leaking holes in it. 900,000 pick up the paper. You don’t get the attention of 800,000. That leaves 100,000. Half of those are interested, so 50,000 are left. Of those left, thanks to your brilliant use of words and/or images, 10 per cent really want what you’re offering today. That’s still 5000 people! For those 5000, you insert a ‘call to action’ that entices consumers to actually take action (pick up the phone, email you or book online). If you have a catchy offer, then perhaps 1 per cent of those people make a booking. That’s 50 bookings!

Sounds easy, right? Of course, there’s more to it, but this AIDA model is a great tool to use as a starting point.