Marketing: Strategies for ad inserts

– By John Foust, Raleigh, NC
I was talking to Sara, who handles the marketing for a company that places advertising in a number of publications. “Inserts will never replace our regular newspaper advertising, but we do run them on special occasions,” she said. “And like everything else in our overall marketing plan, we want to make sure we’re getting the most for our investment.

“An insert rarely stands alone,” Sara said. “When we plan a printed piece, we know it will be competing with a number of other inserts in the same issue of the paper – just like our regular ads compete with other ads. Our big questions are: (1) How can we grab attention?…(2) How can we hold attention?…and (3) How can we drive response?”

Sara mentioned several things that she keeps in mind when she plans an insert:

1. Think big. According to Sara, the first step is to study the typical inserts in the publication that has been selected – and then print her insert on larger paper. “We can’t assume that our insert will be first in line,” she said. “Since it is likely to be in a grouping of other inserts, we want it to stick out around the edges. The way to do that is to use paper that is as big as possible.”

2. Print on both sides. Sara noted that some advertisers print their inserts on one side, and leave the other side blank. “If an insert is printed on just one side, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the wrong side will be facing readers when they flip through the paper. Even if the inserts are placed face-up, there are readers that sift through them from back to front. We always print on both sides, so our inserts will be visible.”

3. Print in color. “It’s false economy to print only in black and white. There’s probably more color in any given number of inserts than in the same number of ROP ads. We have to keep in mind that we’re competing with a lot of glitz and glitter among the other inserts in the same issue of the paper.”

4. Promise a benefit or provide timely information. Sara believes the old WII-FM philosophy is just as true with inserts as it is with other types of advertising: We all listen to the same hypothetical radio station – which stands for “What’s In It For Me?”

“There’s a lot of clutter out there,” Sara said. “People are bombarded with commercial messages screaming to ‘buy this,’ ‘buy that,’ ‘ do this’ or ‘do that.’ We figure that we have a split second to get their attention, and another few seconds to introduce our copy point. If our message does not appeal to their interests, they’ll ignore us completely.”

5. Create urgency. “It’s our objective to motivate potential customers to take some form of immediate action,” Sara explained. “We like to think of readers going through a stack of inserts with scissors in hand. We want them to cut out our information – whether it’s a coupon or a return postcard.”

E-mail John Foust for information about his training videos for ad departments: jfoust@mindspring.com

Posted by Maurizia