newspaper advertising kansas city Archives

15 Design Tips to Help Your Print Ad Stand Out

August 12, 2022 admin

The world of advertising is vast, with countless creative and technical options to choose from when crafting your print ad. With so many variables, it’s hard to know where to start — that’s why we’ve put together this blog post. Here are 15 tips to help your printed ad stand out with Kansas City advertising:

1.) Use Humor

Humor has been a staple of print ads, and it’s worked for decades. A little humor can break through the clutter and catch the reader’s attention, which is especially important in today’s media-saturated world. Adding humor to your ad will help it stand out and make the reader smile so that they might also remember your brand.

2.) Use Proximity

Proximity is a funny word, but it can be an important part of the ad. Proximity simply means “nearness,” and where it can be used in advertising is to make a visual connection between the reader and what you have to offer. This can be done through images floating in space or even a physical representation like a product or its packaging.

3.) Use an Action Shot

A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and that statement holds true in print advertising. Effective action shots can show the reader what your printed ad will look like in real life. Vectors, analogs, close-ups, and portraits all make for effective action shots.

4.) Use Multiple Calls to Action

Each call to action (CTA) should be unique and tailored to your audience. This helps the reader understand what you want them to do and gives them confidence in the action you are asking them to take. Remember, a CTA can be verbal or visual, so there are multiple ways in which you can make a clear request to your audience.

5.) Use Contrast

Contrast is another word that has popped up a lot recently. We’ve put it here to wrap up many of the previous tips, but it also makes for a useful addition on its own. There are two forms of contrast that make for effective print ads — visual and psychological.

Psychological contrast is easy to explain — it’s just making a comparison (or contrast) between two different things, whether they be ideas or products. Visual contrast is more visually-oriented, with either color use or pattern matching making up the difference between your ad and other print ads in the space.

6.) Use a Single Color

While contrast is about using a variety of colors, using a single color can be just as effective — if not more so. A single color allows you to focus on one product or idea and shows how it stands out from everything else. Using less color can actually catch the reader’s attention more than using a lot of colors, but only if you use the right shade.

7.) Know Your Market

Most print ads need to be thoughtfully crafted with the audience in mind. Understanding your market is important because it helps you to understand what your target audience wants and what they are looking for in your brand’s product or service. Kansas City advertising has a wide range of different races, ages, and backgrounds, so finding a balance between them is important to get the best results from your ad.

8.) Know Your Product or Service

Understanding what you are selling — whether directly or indirectly — is a vital part of successful Kansas city advertising. Having an understanding of what your product is and what it can do for the reader helps to create a stronger connection between them and your brand.

9.) Test Everything

There’s no better way to get an idea of how effective your ad will be than to put it in front of a real audience. There are several ways to do this: focus groups, guerilla marketing, A/B testing, and more. With the help of Kansas City advertising professionals, you can find the best way to get accurate results from your market.

10.) Know Your Audience

What do they want? That’s the question you should ask yourself when creating your next print ad. The answer to this question will be different for every person, and so you need to market toward specific groups. For example, will your ad be focused on a demographic like young adults or older households? Knowing which groups you are advertising toward is a great way to make sure that your ad is effective for Kansas City advertising.

11.) Pick the Right Media Type

The media used for print ads varies widely, which means that you need to know your market and your product or service to pick the right media. If you’re selling a service, flyers and posters may be good options, but if you are selling a product that needs a visual representation, then magazines and newspapers might be better. It’s important to pick a format that takes advantage of the strengths of your product or service.

12.) Use Branding

Employing several logos, taglines and trademarks can all help to brand your company and make it memorable. Embracing your brand can help people associate you with quality, something that will benefit them when making a purchase decision. The best print ad features the logo of the company in some capacity, whether in the title or in conjunction with the product being advertised.

13.) Swap Connotations.

Maybe you’re selling a coffee machine, but your ad features an abstract coffee cup. It seems like it would work well, but what if the audience thinks that a different image would be more effective? Swap out the image and pay close attention to how they react. If they seem confused, or if they just don’t see anything appealing in the new image, it might be time to rethink your ad and try something else.

14.) Embrace Third-Party Advertising

Using other brands’ print ads can be a great way to further brand yourself, but it’s also a great way to expand your market. Not only is it good practice, but your product might even end up being featured in the ad. You just have to make sure that you stay true to your brand and don’t use the advertisement as a crutch or money grab.

15.) Leverage Hyperbole.

In Kansas city advertising. Hyperbole is an exaggeration of the truth, and using hyperboles in your print ad can help grab the reader’s attention. These statements can be positive, negative, or both — just don’t get carried away with your exaggeration!

Conclusion

These are just a few of the ways in which you can use print advertising to make your brand stand out. The key is to understand both the product or idea your ad is about and what your audience wants and needs. If you keep these six concepts in mind, you’ll have a better chance of making an effective ad that will get noticed.

Put these design tips to work in our weekly print publication. Your ad will run for at least 26 consecutive weeks and reach your desired target market. It will not be overlooked by larger ads run by bigger spenders either since all of our ads are 3” x 2.” You are also able to make edits to your ad free of charge. Contact us today for more information!

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5 Key Tips for Effective Newspaper Advertising

July 20, 2021 admin

Print media advertising, especially in newspapers, has both its pros and cons. On the one hand, you can generate a lot of leads and exposure with newspaper advertising. But on the other hand, the response rate you get can be less impressive than with online advertising, for example.

But of course, when you’re just starting a brand new business or looking to make your current business even better, you should try out every advertising method. Print media advertising is still very effective for many small businesses, and it might work well for you. The key thing to remember is not going all out in one form of advertising until you’ve tested it first with a smaller investment of money.

1. Consider How Advertising Costs Are Calculated

How the advertising costs are calculated will influence your decision of where to advertise. For example, in newspapers, ad space is sold by the column inch. The rate you pay for that inch can also vary depending on the specific ad classification. For instance, if you’re advertising in a service directory, that should cost less per column inch than an ad in a regular editorial section.

Another thing to keep in mind is that pretty much every newspaper gives discounts for contracted advertisers. The specific discount depends on how much ad space and volume they commit to for the specified contract year.

2. Select the Best Newspapers

It’s usually expensive to invest in national and regional print media advertising. On the other hand, community and local newspapers are less costly. In addition, they might allow you to take a more focused approach to your advertising.

After all, if you offer a local service, then it’s definitely more logical to focus on the local community and their newspaper. That’s because the people in that community will be more likely to read their local paper than a national publication.

While many people read national print media, it’s not worth investing in unless you have a bigger budget, it’s your target audience, and you know what you’re doing.

That isn’t to say that reaching out to a large number of people is a bad thing. On the contrary, metropolitan print media advertising can work well if your product or service is exceptional enough to stand out and pull in people from that particular metro area.

3. Look at What Your Competition Is Doing

Your competitors are likely spending their money on some form of print media advertising. If they are also in your local newspaper, that means your advertising efforts could potentially be diminished. You’ll be competing with them for your customers’ “mind share.”

The lesson here is this: don’t put all of your advertising eggs in one basket. Instead, diversify your advertising efforts, i.e., have a presence on both print media and online. You should also have a backup plan for when the space you’re in becomes too crowded and/or less profitable.

4. Learn to Write Effective Copy

Now that we’ve talked about the key tips for getting started, we’ll discuss the specifics of how to create an effective ad. Of course, there’s a lot to cover in this subject, and copywriting is a skill in itself (which is why good copywriters get paid well). First, however, we’ll go over the basics here. But make no mistake, these points are crucial for success in print media advertising.

The Headline

The first thing to do is create an attention-grabbing headline. It could be a carefully crafted headline for what you offer or simply an eye-catching phrase. However, if you want to use phrases, avoid slang and controversial terms. And keep your headline short and sweet. A long headline will seldom grab anyone’s attention.

The Body Text

Now for the actual copy (body text) – it will need to be long enough to support your message, but no more than that. How do you know how long to make it? Consider what kind of business you are or the specific product that you’re offering. Suppose it’s a business product or a technical product. In that case, a longer copy works better because it will come across as more informative.

Now, the advantage of shorter copy is that it creates more room for images and graphics. This combo works well for industries involving fashion, lifestyle products, and home décor.

Your Messaging

This is the nitty-gritty of what your messaging will actually contain. A powerful technique that works in print media advertising is using comparative advertising phrases. These are phrases like “You’ve experienced the rest. Now try the best!” However, you need a solid product or service to back up a statement like this. Your offering should include obvious advantages over your competition (some of whom might be advertising in that very same column or section).

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits

Next, you need to highlight the benefits of your product or service offering. Why should they buy it now? List your reasons or product/service benefits in the body of the copy. Put the emphasis on the customer and not yourself. For example, use “you” instead of “we.” Use bullet points to mention the key attributes.

Get The Sale!

And now for the closing section. This simply needs to include the essential information that’s necessary for you to get the sale. I.e., your contact information, business address, phone number, website name or URL, etc. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customer to act on their purchasing decision.

5. Consider Free Newspaper Advertising

Finally, we’d like to wrap this up with a few closing tips.

If your product or service offering is more downscale and low-cost, then consider just advertising in a free newspaper to start out. However, if your offering is more upscale, then stick with paid print media advertising.

Even if you fit into the latter situation, you should still stick with a lower budget for your first advertising campaign. Test things out, see the results firsthand, and you’ll get a better sense of how effective your advertising actually is. If you’re inexperienced, the last thing you want to do is recklessly blow all of your ad dollars.