We are all becoming increasingly immune to many forms of advertising, including local newspaper advertising. So to be an effective marketing tool for small businesses, newspaper ads need to overcome that immunity by being eye-catching, interesting and different.

Bad advertising will be lost among the other ads on the page and get overlooked by the very people you want to attract.

Good advertising will do the opposite. It will stand out from the rest of the advertisements and get your product or service noticed. More importantly it will encourage people to take action and contact you.

Here are 7 tips to take to help your newspaper advertisements to get past that immunity:

1. Use a bold, broken border

Placing a bold, broken line around your ad will make it look like a coupon which will attract attention.

2. Focus on just one product or service at a time

A newspaper advertisement should sell just one product or service. It should not be an exhaustive list of everything you do or a statement which says something like “all types of work undertaken”. People are looking for a specific answer to a specific problem, not a ‘jack of all trades’. If you want to tell people about all the products or services you offer, run a different ad each week, or perhaps a series of ads all the same week in the same place on several pages of the same newspaper.

3. Start with a headline

It never ceases to amaze me how many small business advertisements start with the name of the business, which to a potential customer is utterly uninteresting. Instead, start with a big, bold headline that will grab people’s attention…

• Buy one get one free
• Sale must end Friday
• Free installation this month

…and so on.

4. Keep it simple

Unless you are a skilled copywriter, aim to get your message across in as few words as possible and keep images to a minimum. Tell the potential customer what you have to offer, how much it is and how to contact you.

5. Include a reason to act now

Unless you give someone a reason to act now, they probably won’t, so include a limited time offer, or a discount for responding quickly.

6. End with a call to action

At the bottom of your ad include a call to action…

• Phone now for a free quote
• Call today to book
• Bring this coupon into the shop for 10% discount

…and so on.

7. Record your results

Don’t make the mistake of not recording the results of your advertising efforts. Ask people how they heard about you and keep records of responses to your advertising. I have never heard of anyone complaining about being asked how they found out about a product or service at the point when they are buying it – so ask. This information will be invaluable when placing new campaigns in the future.

Follow these 7 local newspaper advertising tips and see the difference they make to your sales leads for yourself.



Flyer distribution when done correctly will provide predictable and consistent results. As a rough guide, the national average in the UK is a response rate of between 0.5% and 1%. In other words, if you deliver 1000 flyers you can expect to get between 5 and 10 enquiries.

It is worth noting that the national average is based on all direct marketing including letters, leaflets, postcards, flyers etc. It is also based on all industries. So to get much more accurate figures for your business you should run a test. The test should be a minimum of 1000 flyers. Carefully record the responses received and this should be your baseline.

Whilst you may be happy with a 0.5% to 1% response, there are a number of ways to increase your results. By working on all of the following points you may well be able to achieve response rates of between 10% and 30%, or perhaps even more in niche markets.

The flyer itself

• Size – the size of your flyer will affect the cost and its readability
• Thickness – the thickness of your flyer will affect the quality people associate with it and therefore your business
• Weight – choosing the right weight of printing stock will make a huge difference to the amount of weight your flyer distributors have to carry. Consider this carefully and do the maths before ordering your flyers.
• Flyer content – getting the flyer content right is probably the biggest single factor in successful flyer distribution campaigns. Sell the benefits of your product or service, not the features. Focus on the customer and what they want, could gain, or benefit from. Don’t focus on your product, your service, or your business; people are basically selfish. They only really care about what’s in it for them. They don’t give a damn about you.
• A reason to act now – give people a reason to act now. Perhaps a special offer or a discount; and whatever you do, make it a genuine offer or discount only available to people who have the flyer. One of the best ways to alienate people from your business is to give them the same special offer or discount they can get from another source; it makes your business come across as dishonest.
• Make it time limited – putting a time limit on offers makes people act. If you don’t put a time limit on them they have no reason to act now.
• A call to action – it may sound stupid, but tell people what you want them to do. Tell them to ‘call now’, ‘visit the shop this month’, ‘send an email before Friday’ etc. and
• Printing – choose a printer that will give you a quality product. Photocopied flyers are almost always a bad idea. They will give the impression that your business cuts costs, cuts corners and offers products and services that are low quality. Spending a few pounds on quality printing is always worth doing.

The bottom line with flyer design is that you should always seek professional help unless you are certain you know what you are doing. This is because it will save you huge amounts of trial and error.

Targeting your market

Choose your target market carefully. If you are selling to businesses, focus on industrial estates, town centres, shops and offices. If you are selling to consumers focus on houses and flats.

Find out how many businesses or homes are in your target area. To do this use some of the huge amount of free information available online. A great place to start is www.mouseprice.com.

Click on Local area guide and type in a postcode or street and town. Then click Search. You will be presented with background information about the area and, down the left hand side a menu of more detailed information. Have a good look around these options and you will see that there is a lot of information there.

To work out how many flyers you will need, click on Street index for…

This will give you an alphabetical list of all the local streets, and if you then click on an individual street name it will give you a list of all the properties in that street.

Whilst a blanket approach will work, a much more targeted approach will work better, so choose your targets carefully based on all the detailed information you can find. Consider things like age, income, housing type, marital status etc. based upon what you have to offer.

Always keep accurate records of response rates and adjust your methods accordingly.

Flyer distribution options

Flyers are always most effective when delivered on their own. Inserting them into newspapers, bundling them with other flyers, or following someone else around who is delivering something else will always produce poorer results.

• Newspapers – newspapers whilst the response rates will be lower than flyers delivered on their own, newspapers often offer very cheap rates per thousand flyers, so they are worth considering and certainly worth testing.
• Distribution Companies – there are many companies who specialise in flyer distribution; Google them for your area. Always ask for references and don’t choose the cheapest.
• Self-Distribution – If you have the time, this is a very cheap and effective way to deliver your flyers exactly where you want them. The results can be very good because you can be very specific in choosing your targets.

And finally…

Flyer distribution works. Try it for yourself today.

Looking for free advertising ideas?

How simple is this…

Put your website address on the back of your vehicle.

This vehicle lettering cost just £10 from the local print shop.

OK, so it’s not entirely free – it cost £10, but there are no ongoing costs at all and if it produces one sale, it has paid for itself.

The idea is really simple – it will generate new visitors to your website from people who see your vehicle while you’re out and about.

Try it for yourself, for the sake of £10, this one really is a no-brainer.

For more free advertising ideas read my blog regularly or subscribe to my RSS feed. You can even have my latest blog articles, including those about free advertising ideas delivered straight to your inbox each week by email.

Successful Advertising for Small Businesses (Entrepreneur Magazine) by Conrad Berke.

How to plan, write, design, and profit from your own advertising!

There is nothing mysterious about creating high–quality, effective advertising–but there is a lot to learn. In this remarkable handbook, you′ll discover how to plan and carry out an ad campaign that boosts sales, increases profits, and helps your business grow. Small–business advertising veteran Conrad Berke provides countless examples as he shows you step by step how to conceive, budget, create, and place ads that will have customers flocking to your place of business ready to spend money.

You′ll learn how to:

• Plan for a 25% sales jump and a 33% leap in profits
• Write powerful headlines and effective advertising copy that move people to action
• Identify and target consumers who are most likely to buy your goods or services
• Become a smart media buyer
• Turn a £1,000 outlay into £15,000 worth of advertising

ENTREPRENEUR Magazine

ENTREPRENEUR Magazine is the banner publication of the Entrepreneur Magazine Group. It has the largest newsstand circulation of any business monthly with a total ABC audited circulation of 410,000. CONRAD BERKE, former head of advertising and associate publisher of Jewish Week, currently sells advertising space for New York′s Daily News and teaches advertising at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He has 40 years′ experience writing, designing, and selling small–business advertising.

See larger image Successful Advertising for Small Businesses (Entrepreneur Magazine) (Paperback) By (author) Conrad Berke List Price: 13.99 GBP New From: 7.73 In Stock Used from: 0.71 In Stock

Most small business advertising is awful.

Pick up any local newspaper and turn to the classified advertising section. You will be confronted by a huge selection of  yawn-inducing adverts for small local businesses. They frequently lack appeal, information, urgency, passion and most of all effectiveness.

If you want to throw your money away, do what they are doing, but if you want to make advertising work for your business, use these 10 simple ways to avoid common advertising mistakes.

1. Promote solutions, not your name

Take another look at that local newspaper. You will probably notice that a huge proportion of the advertisers make their business name the largest and boldest words in the advertisement.  A potential customer is not looking for your name; they are looking for a solution to a problem they have. People buy solutions to the problems they have because those are the things that are important to them at that time.You may love your name or logo, but the reader doesn’t give a damn about it. If you want your advertisement to generate sales, it needs to stand out and grab the reader’s attention, not be an exercise in self-appreciation.

2. Be specific, not general

Again, look at that local newspaper; notice how many advertisements say things like “all kinds of work undertaken”, “no job too big or small”, “reasonable rates”, or “x, y, z, etc.” If you were looking through your local paper to find someone who could supply and fit a new shower for you, which of the two ads above would you be more likely to respond to? People aren’t looking for a “Jack-of-all-trades”, they are looking for a solution to their problem.

3. Use an attention grabbing headline

Headlines make people read advertisements. “Free chocolate today!”, “Stop dripping taps forever”, “Sparkling clean windows the easy way” and so on. Writing attention grabbing headlines is a must if you want people to read your advertisements. To learn how, read How to Write Headlines that Sell. The eBook it talks about is written by a hugely successful marketing expert, is simply brilliant and at the moment, its free.

4. Write advertisements in lower case

This is probably the biggest single mistake that small businesses make when it comes to advertising. To find out why, read Capital Punishment for Small Businesses.

5. Use simple language

Call it a “spade”, not a “landscape remodelling device”. Don’t use 30 words where 6 will do. Potential customers are not interested in the fact that you understand and use 7 syllable words on a daily basis. Language that is easy to read and understand is generally what works in advertising.

6. Write short sentences

Short sentences are punchy. They have impact. They are easy to read. They make it easy to keep reading. Get the idea?

7. Give people a reason to respond

Why should the reader call you today? They might leave it until tomorrow when they’re less busy. But we all know that tomorrow never comes. Give them a reason to act now; a discount, a special offer for this week, month etc.

8. The most powerful word is ‘free’

“Free” is still the most powerful word in advertising – use it. “Free quotes”, “Call now for a free brochure”, “Buy One Get One Free”, “Free Safety Checks” and so on.

9. End with a call to action

Tell your prospect to call, email or visit your website. It might sound obvious, but huge numbers of advertisers never do this.

10. Get some professional help

For more help with getting your advertising right, call 01263 722764 or send us an email right now – before you get side-tracked.