Drawbacks of print advertising that you need to be aware of

Print advertising has been the traditionally used medium for advertising and this business has been flourishing since the inception of newspapers and magazines. While print advertising has a plethora of advantages to offer, we must not forget that there are always two sides to a coin, and print media to suffers from a few drawbacks.

Let us discuss the limitations of print advertising :

  • Limited Shelf Life :

Newspapers are usually read once or twice, and thereafter sold off to scrap dealers or are simply thrown away. The average effective life of a newspaper, for any individual, is estimated to be a maximum of 15 to 20 minutes only. Typically, no reader refers back to an outdated newspaper issue and therefore, advertisers must repeat their advertisements to ensure that the advertisement has a lasting impact.

  • Uncertainty :

Since many readers tend to read newspapers in a rush, there is no guarantee that the advertisements will definitely be read. There is a high degree of uncertainty involved with newspaper advertisements, as readers might give the advertisement a total miss.

  • Limited readership due to Literacy factor : 

Newspapers are meant to be read, and hence advertising through newspapers does not work for people who cannot read or write.  The readership of newspapers is consequently limited to educated people only. This is a major problem with the rural areas, where literacy rates are reasonably lower than elsewhere. 

  • Lack of quality reproduction :

Newspapers involve the use of low-quality paper for publishing purposes. The desired visual effects may not be achieved, and the advertisement may not be appealing to the audience.

  • Availability of modern advertising mediums :

There are better and modernised mediums for advertising available today. Advertising through radio, television or internet, though expensive, are remembered much more than newspaper advertisements on account of an audio/video element attached to it.

  • Competitor Threat :

As newspapers are a highly visible medium, competitors may instantly react to the advertisements published.

  • Lack of control over Ad Placement :

Newspapers do not guarantee publishing of advertisements on particular premium pages. There are high chances of the advertisements not being published on the desired page or desired dates when the ad space runs out for a particular date.

  • Advertisement Clutter :
Advertising Options

Multiple advertisements when printed on the same page tend to create unnecessary visual clutter, causing people to overlook specific advertisements. Advertisers with smaller advertisements, often run the risk of not catching the attention of potential customers when they are overlooked due to the clutter created by other competing advertisements. 

  • Lesser Targeting :

Newspaper advertisements generally broadcast the message to one and all alike. They do not project the advertisements as specifically meant for a certain audience group. It is often difficult to target a specific target audience through newspaper advertising.

Advertising Cost
  • Increase in Advertising Cost :

To enhance the appeal of the newspaper advertisement, the advertisers often need to spend more towards the advertisement design, as compared to a plain text advertisement. Graphics, colours and images are employed to enhance the visual appeal of the advertisement, which incurs extra expenditure on the advertising campaign. Furthermore, advertisements need to be published frequently in order to be remembered by the audience. Repeated advertising too implies an increase in advertising expenses.

  • Lead Time Delays :

As print media requires production, the information requires a lead time before it is processed and published in the newspaper. Sometimes this causes the information to become obsolete even before it reaches the audience.

To conclude, every advertising medium is effective in its own way. It is required to plan the advertisement stressing on the positive aspects of the advertising medium concerned while working to minimise the adverse effects of advertising through print media.

How to Determine The Right Budget for your Newspaper Ad Campaign?

Budget, a word that pops up first in everyone’s mind, leave alone an advertiser. Everyone interested in advertising intends to be sure of how much investment needs to be made behind a successful advertisement campaign. One also needs to be sure of the elements that lead to the expenses associated with the advertisement.

To respond to that, there are quite a few factors which regulate the budget of an advertisement and needs to be published in a newspaper. In this case, the medium is already been determined, which is Newspapers and the elements that manipulate the expenditure for any newspaper advertisement are listed below:

Choice of Newspaper

Many of few may be wondering that how can the newspaper choice affect the budget for an advertisement. Well, the truth is that every newspaper is not as popular as a few are and not all newspapers have the same circulation or readership.

More popularity, higher circulation and wider readership lead to a higher price tag for a newspaper advertising space. Simply because all these factors ensure more eyeballs for an ad and of course higher visibility leading to better responses.

For instance, if you intend to advertise in Times of India, then naturally the budget will be higher when compared to an ad published in a less popular newspaper such as Midday. As TOI has a much higher circulation (around 31.4 lakhs) than The Telegraph (around 4.84 lakhs), rather the former is the most widely circulated English daily of India.

Frequency of Ad

The frequency of an ad is always a factor that manipulates the budget of a campaign. This frequency of the advertisement is associated with the objective that needs to be addressed with it.

Multiple Ads-Brand awareness advertisements require a lot more visibility on a frequent basis to make the target audience accustomed to the brand name, therefore, this objective requires advertisers to publish a single ad multiple times or multiple ads in multiple newspapers with consistent gaps between each release.

Running Ads- Certain advertisements need to be published at the time so that they run parallel with the event that’s being promoted. In the sense that, if a Shopper’s Stop is giving out a massive sale with attractive discount offers during the festive month of October, then they need to promote the event during the course of the month of October, if possible, on a daily basis. This can ensure a huge number of footfalls but will also be an expensive affair as the same ad cannot be run every day, but new ad creative needs to be conceived individually for different days.

One Time Ads- Notifications are the least expensive ones as they need to be announced only once as a formal announcement. It is the just straightforward intimation to the public about a personal development or change or a notice issued in public interest.

Ad Specifications

Ad specifications refer to the size, position and placement of an advertisement in a newspaper. So it is essential to comprehend that the cost of an advertisement is decided as per the size or space occupied by it in a page, the position or section of the page it is placed on and the page or supplement it is printed on.

The size of the ad is measured in terms of the height and width calculated in centimetres.

The position of the ad varies depending on the corner or area of the page it is printed such as upper half, lower half, upper right or left corner and lower right or left corner.

The placement of the ad makes the cost vary as per the page selected, which can be the front, back, third or any page and it can also be printed on a preferred supplement.

For instance, if an ad is printed on the front page, an extra premium will be added to it unlike an ad printed on any page.

Rate Negotiations

Negotiation is the most important part of budget allocation for an ad campaign. So an advertiser needs to be careful while negotiating the rates for newspaper advertisements. A simple strategy can ensure that you get the maximum out of the money invested in the ad campaign. Two things must be considered while confirming the release of your advert as are specified below:

Packages It is always advisable to opt for packages in case of multiple city or district or state releases rather than choosing individual editions of a newspaper. This saves on a huge amount of money as packages offer hefty concessions on newspaper ad releases.

Insertions offer Insertion offers to refer to bulk booking offers such as “Book 5 and Get 3 ads for free” or “Get 6 ads for the Price of 4”. It is quite evident that such bulk bookings help save a lot of money due to the availability of such insertion offers, which in turn can make quite a positive difference to your advertising budget.

So get set and be smart while you allocate your budget for your newspaper ad campaign!