advertising locally

From: Francie Nichols <francie_at_pulleyn.com>
Date: Thu 30 Sep 1999 12:18:11 -0400

MIKE MILLER WROTE:
>I'm going to be doing advertising at the local level
>(suburban towns, New York City area) for a network of
>locally focused community Web sites that I'll soon be
>launching... Any opinions on which ad medium I should
>stress?"

Mike, from what you are describing, this is an introduction.
As such, you really should have as much expansive reach of
your core demo as possible, even if for a limited time of
two to four weeks. For that reason, and because media is so
fragmented these days, I would suggest you try to reach your
audience in many different ways.

For one thing, send out targeted press release information.
That is, target the local media in these areas. Make it
relevant to them and their audiences. That means, find an
angle. Can accessing these sites provide the target audience
with information on political elections that are important?
Well, it's election time, and there's an angle. That kind
of thing.

Use the local suburban newspapers, assuming they are
subscribed to. If it's a paper in the USSPI group, they are
audited, and geographically circumscribed. Your target
audience probably has children in local sports programs, and
these papers report on the local sports competitions. Be
judicious in the size of ad you use; sacrifice size in order
to run more frequently. You might consider running a larger
size ad the first couple of times, just for the visibility,
then reduce to a size that you can sustain for several
weeks.

Get into a link exchange program with well-established local
sites. This could be media sites, the chamber of commerce,
newspapers, radio stations, whatever.

Be judicious in your use of radio. If it's the NYC area,
are the local residents listening to NYC stations, or to the
local ones? Make sure you are looking at ratings
information to evaluate what you're getting. But using radio
is a good idea because the parents are carting their
children all over for school activities and extra-curricular
activities. They are in the car a lot. Think about that.
What stations are being listened to? The mom's favorite?
or the Kid's favorite?

Finally, I don't know what your area of expertise is, but if
it's not media buying, then hire someone who is an expert in
media buying in your area and do it right. If you need PR
assistance, get it. These on-line tidbits of information
(even mine) are limited: we don't know your full marketing
situation, your budget, your objectives. Our advice can
only be limited (possibly limiting) under these
circumstances.


Francie Nichols
Media Director
Buck & Pulleyn
500 Helendale Road
Rochester, NY 14609
716-288-6900
Fax: 716-288-4474
e-mail: francie_at_pulleyn.com





Received on Thu Sep 30 1999 - 11:18:11 CDT