You may not have thought about advertising from this perspective, but it’s relatively easy. A salesperson simply sells you space off a rate card in any section or any edition of the newspaper you decide to target. Then you work with a graphics designer to come up with an ad. Now, even though it requires little work on your part, you need to remember the cost of placing an ad, and it can be fairly expensive.
For example, a full-page display ad in the Sunday edition of the New York Times Business section will run you more than $150,000! But, if you, your business or product is written up in a news story, the exposure doesn’t cost you a dime!
Plus there are several advantages.
Credibility
Your message actually has great credibility among readers in the news section rather than in the advertising pages. Let’s say you buy an ad in a major newspaper. For those who bother to read your ad, as long as they actually remember what they read, you have gained some credibility. Now, compare that with a free two-column article about you or your company in a respected newspaper. And don’t forget that this time the reader gets more than just your company name
and logo and a few lines of text. You might also want to think about how many images you are subjected to through advertising in
a year. Would you be even a little surprised to learn that a majority of newspaper readers become desensitized to advertising? The simple fact is, the American public is often suspicious of advertising because it can lack credibility. The ads tend to be glossy and slick, the people all look perfect and it doesn’t reflect reality.
Research studies show that information American consumers gathered from news stories has much more credence and appears to be more factual. People tend to believe newspaper articles much more than they believe the advertisements they see. And even when you take today’s scrutiny of the press into consideration, studies show that more readers still believe the news in print.
Cost
The amount of “ink” or space you receive in newspaper editorial coverage would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if you had to pay for the same amount of space in the advertising or classified pages. (Newspapers generate the majority of their revenue from advertising, not paid subscriptions or newsstand sales.) As a result, advertising can be too expensive for the average small business. Increasingly, advertising is becoming less effective at influencing consumers and
reaching targeted audiences. Why? Well, in an average day, it’s estimated the most Americans see approximately 2,500 different advertising messages. In a year—that figure grows to potentially millions! Therefore, it’s easy to see why the news story they read is something they’ll remember and it will stand out as making a difference in their lives.
