I had the opportunity to listen to Kevin Slimp last weekend, courtesy of Free Community Papers of NY which hosted Kevin for our annual publisher's conference. If you don't know Kevin, you should. He is the graphics guru for our industry and he is on top of everything it seems: best prices, best practices, best advice. Kevin talked a lot about the Groupon/Living Social/Daily Deal phenomenon in advertising. After great initial growth the fortunes of this ad medium, in general, are taking a hit. One big reason is that advertisers are learning that people who take advantage of their deep discount deals don't come back as repeat customers at regular price. They only buy the product when it's on sale.
New technology...same old story.
We had a good restaurant advertiser a few years back who did the 'buy one, get one" thing very well with coupons in our papers but wasn't happy that the same people came back time and time again with that coupon in hand. We got fired from the media mix for doing our job too well it seems. Advertiser not happy, newspaper not happy, and reader not happy that coupon is now gone. It's not supposed to work that way.
It all comes back to value. A business has to make a real value offer to attract customers today but they also have to learn how to market to the audience they attract and turn them into something more than discount shoppers. We in the media have to bring our expertise to the table to coach advertisers on how to make life long customers out of folks who respond to a coupon. It's about more than just selling them an ad. And both medium and advertiser have to recognize that today's shopper has changed, the market has changed and we have to learn how to offer attractive value that doesn't undermine the bottom line. Value should cut to the chase for our customers; it shouldn't cut us off at the knees.
New technology...same old story:
Take care of the reader with value, take care of the advertiser with valuable marketing planning and we in the media business will be taken care of as a result. Reader happy, advertiser happy and newspaper happy.
We at the Scotsman would love the opportunity to try to make you happy. Call us at 315-472-7825 or info@scotsmanmediagroup.com. Thanks!
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