Are you one of the hundreds of Business Owners on the Sunshine Coast forking over your hard earned cash to pay for advertising that lies rotting in the gutter every week?
Take a good hard look at this photo below.
Let me just set the scene for this post with this quick side note: Each one of those arrows in the photo above is pointing to one of the FREE newspapers that’s been lying on the ground for days.
Let’s continue…
This is a photo of my street and it’s the same thing week after week. Around mid-week a plethora of FREE newspaper – magazines are delivered.
From Wednesday to Sunday the streets are literally littered ( as per the photo above) with unrequested rubbish that’s disguised under the name of FREE newspapers.
Over 150,000 (that’s just from one publisher) of these damned things are left lying on the streets (each one in a plastic bag) every week.
On Sunday (the day before bin collection day) the streets are finally free of this environmental vandalism.
You’re picking up (pun intended) what I am putting down her right?
The papers are delivered midweek, the streets are littered with them for 3 to 4 days, then the day before bin day all of a sudden they disappear.
Where do you think they are going?
Perhaps all of a sudden the day before bin day people think to themselves…
Mmm I haven’t read all of those papers lying out on the footpath, I had better go and grab them and have a read of them.
Yep, that’s SARCASM!
With the plethora of options available for the consumption of media today, how many people do you think still read the newspaper?
Let’s just have a look at the options available…
- News Websites
- YouTube
- Mobile Apps
- Blogs
The list goes on and on.
Even though you already know what I am saying makes sense, there’s an easy sure fire way to confirm your suspicions that I’m right.
Talk a walk around the streets of your own Neighbourhood on a Thursday or Friday and you’ll soon see what I am talking about.
The waste is ridiculous, and it really doesn’t need to be this way. In fact I am going to give the newspapers the answer to their problem right now.
This is what the papers need to do, it’s called a direct mail marketing campaign.
They could simply send out a postcard to each house that they currently deliver a newspaper to with the following text on it.
Help Needed.
Can we ask for your opinion, please?
Can you help us out with a simple quick (takes literally 30 seconds) multiple-choice online survey? As a way of saying thanks at the end of the survey, you will get (insert a valid incentive) to say thanks for helping us out.
We understand that things have changed dramatically in the last few years and we want to deliver our paper to you in a format that’s of the most value for you, hence the survey to find out what you want.
What this achieves (besides collecting email addresses if they’re really smart about it) is they’ll literally know what format to deliver their newspaper in, so that it’s actually going to get read.
The saving of not having to produce tons of rubbish every month alone would be enormous.
As Bob Dylan sang “the times they are a changin”
It’s time the print media woke up to it and started producing a product the consumer actually wants to consume.
In fact, if they’re truly serious about being responsible members of the Sunshine Coast Community they’ll take my suggestion on board and implement it immediately.
Do you think it will happen? I’m tipping NO.
They’ll keep clinging to the idea of delivering over 150,000 papers every week so that they can sell advertisers on the idea that their message is getting into 150,000 homes across the Coast.
So what are your alternatives?
After all you know that the way you used to advertise just doesn’t work anymore {the proof is in the photo at the top of the page, when they say a picture paints a thousand words they could have been talking about that photo} but you’re just not sure what to do instead, or even how to get started.
Here’s what you need to do next…
Here’s some more FREE Savvy Marketing Strategies that are going to make you want to come and buy from me when you’re ready to get cracking.