Print advertising

[george tichbourne]

I was wondering, in the aftermath of the KI line last week, if print advertising is really the way to go. Are the magazines getting the attention that they used to get? Is the internet taking over the primary initial contact with new enthusiasts that the magazine covers used to do. There is no doubt in my mind that magazines with large photos of flashy knives used to attract the uninitiated.

The internet on the other hand is huge and difficult to use for the ininitiated, just too much information to assimilate. Have you noticed on roadside billboards that almost every other one is touting a website address, so many in fact how do you possibly remember them when you get back to your computer? which brings us back to the question, How do you get people to look at your product or web site?

A friend of mine believes in target advertising, in other words go where your customer base goes...knife shows, hunting shows, knife magazines etc. I can't argue with him but my print advertising has been drawing fewer and fewer responses every month since the Internet thing has become larger and larger(in Canada it is estimated that 51% of the households are internet connected, quite interesting). Logic then says that you should advertise on the net but who actually looks at banner advertising? Or do you treat banner advertising like commercials on TV to be fast forwarded through or change the channel to avoid watching the commercial?

Any comments?

 

[Knife Outlet]

I don't think so George. We run ads in Blade Magazine and a couple of gun magazines (Guns and American Handgunner.) Those ads cost just a little more than $1000 per month total (pretty reasonable in my opinion.) We get about 20 calls per day from people who don't have computers wanting catalogs (sorry ours is online) or wanting to place orders. They mention they saw the ad in one of the magazines. If 20 per day call, I can only assume many more who have a computer simply go to the site. It's an assumption but my gut feeling is that we get a positive return from magazine ads.

You can run banner ads here and on Knifeforms for a reasonable annual cost. Unfortunately, you reach only a tiny percentage of the knife buying population but, at least, it is an enthusiastic percentage and based on our logs, we did pretty well with our banners here until they were inexplicably cancelled. I'd recommend them.

Stay away from internet advertising that sells "impressions." An impression is pretty worthless. It just means a banner appears on a page that a user has accessed. It isn't a website visit. This kind of advertising is not productive. My experience is that it actually costs more than the gross profit it generates. We've done it twice and won't do it again.

If you want internet traffic, that means doing the work or paying someone to do the work to get your website ranked high on the search engines. That is truly meaningful. We achieve over 6000 visits (new sessions with our home page) per day and literally millions of "hits" per month and over 80% of it comes from the search engines. It's basically how we make a living. A good portion also comes from links we have traded with other companies. As an example, you have a link on our website. Your logs should tell you how many visits you get from it. If you want telephone traffic then I think the magazine advertising is still a good value and an effective tool. Good luck.

 

[dsvirsky]

FWIW, I tend to "tune out" banner advertising. Only rarely does any of it catch my attention, and it's far more rare that I actually click on any of it.

By the same token, while I enjoy good print advertising, no matter how nice the knives look, it's unlikely that I'll be contacting the maker for more information unless there's also a website.

 

[Gollnick]

Is the internet taking over the primary initial contact with new enthusiasts that the magazine covers used to do?

No. Advertising professionals will tell you that the internet has taken over as the follow-through.
The problem with the web is that it has become very, very large and there really isn't a great way to find something. Even the best of the search engines aren't very good. This is why every billboard, print ad, and even TV and radio ad is pushing a URL these days.

The print ad, billboard, or commercial is the bait to entice the person to your website.

In a print ad, you can present one or two pictures and at most a few hundred words of text. The goal here is to get their attention and get 'em interested enough to come to that website where you can present dozens of pictures, paragraphs of text, sound, and even a flash presentation if you want.

 

[george tichbourne]

I was wondering if the follow through aspect was in operation here, careful questioning of new customers seemed to indicate that something like that was happening. Unfortunately unless you talk with the customer in person it is often difficult to get informtion of that nature.

The magazine advertising has never been a big part of my business but since KI's change of direction I have been wondering if the apparent lower response was due to the editorial change or due to the internet growth. The other two magazines have never seemed to have targeted the customer base that I sell to so I have not advertised there. It is odd that Fred mentioned Guns magazine as I have been talking to them, the market demographic appears to be ideal and with 190,000 distribution it may be worth the advertising cost but I will have to start with a smaller ad than I have now.

The upside of internet contacts are they do not want catalogues, because they are very expensive and all they are are printouts of the web site.

Thanks guys.
Fred your website is a constant source of visitors and I thank you for the opportunity.

 

[Bugs3x]

Just for the hell of it, I just went to my favorite search engine, 1Blink. It uses up to 7 engines. 1 engine had nada. Zip. ANother had many but doesn't share how many it has total. One that listed just under 6K hits I liked the best. There were 2 others that showed 61K and 59K respectively. They were okay, but but not great. ANother engine focused almost entirely on custom dealers, not makers.

The one with 6K was almost all makers, and with litte repetition in 160+ listings. The only maker who consistently made it into the top 10 or 20 was Rob Simonich. In one, I was surprised to see Steve Schwarzer past 100 on the list. Several part timers appeared well in advance of Jerry Fisk. I've no idea how the engines determine the order in which they organize their hits.

One last thing. I have seen quite a number of maker websites where one can only find 4 or 5 knives on the site. ONe sees an awful lot of empty "Available" sections. Many galleries exhibit only a few knives. From many of hte sites, I tend to think that the maker is probably brand new, and has only made the few knives on display. I think surfers/customers want some eye candy. I think that when they fail to find it they hit the back button pretty fast. Knife sites should have lots of knife pictures.

 

[george tichbourne]

I agree with you Bugs3x photos are essential. That website is like your storefront, if someone walks in and the showcases are empty they are not going to hang around very long. This is the main reason I have a large site with 60 to 80 photos at all times.

I admit having Carol to shoot photos of everything that I make and to update the website on almost a weekly basis really helps. I coudn't maintain the site without her.