Why food companies still invest in traditional media

We came across this interesting article and wanted to share it. https://www.fooddive.com/news/food-companies-marketing-tv-print-radio/437831/

To us it’s no surprise, we have hundreds of local advertisers that continue to use our publication to reach our readers. Demand to read our publication has never wavered. Our weekly return rate is in the 2 percent range (that means 98% of our printed product gets pricked up each week); we’ve been tracking our returns for 17 years. They key to attracting readers is content. If it’s good, interesting and relevant, people will read you. We like to print environment because of it is consumed at the readers’ leisure. It’s passive and readers engage with our content, including the ads, when they want to and on their terms.

Interesting Internet start-ups are using print in the same way (https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-young-companies-are-starting-print-magazines-as-a-way-to-help-build-their-brands/) . Airbnb and Dollar Shave Club have all started print magazines to create more of a relationship with readers. These companies understand how beneficial print is to a brand.

Readers Want Good Quality Content?

An article in Editor and Publisher looked into a study that said a good chunk of the reason people don't subscribe to daily newspapers is that there isn't enough local news and poor writing — 54 percent. Another 26 percent said poor customer service and delivery was why they didn't subscribe. 

Most interesting, of people who subscribe to a daily newspaper 38 complain about the lack of local content. Another 22 percent complained about poor writing. 

Content is king. Regardless of medium people expect it to be good. And that goes double if they are paying for it. 

Large drops in circulation by dailies (compared to increases for Hippo) is a direct reflection of the declining local content. 

P&G Questions Facebook effectiveness

A WSJ article pointed out what many already knew -- that zoning into too closely on potential customers doesn't always work. 

The larger issue is that the article hits on is overly targeting an audience. The theory was we'll micro target and save a lot of money but the problem is that targeting means limiting. While that can work for very specific product lines it doesn't work for general products and services -- such as restaurants, salons and other main street type businesses. These businesses need a larger audience.  

People fleeing the Internet?

The Washington Post reported people moving away from going online to use social media, financial transactions, buying goods and expressing opinion. 

It's a troubling trend and I think Google, Facebook and Amazon -- the monopolists of the internet -- need to to more to police it. 

Here's the story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/13/new-government-data-shows-a-staggering-number-of-americans-have-stopped-basic-online-activities/

Facebook ran into trouble after admitting that it had people editing newsfeeds rather than just some algorithm doing it. The issue there is that Facebook is now becoming more of a publisher, not something they admit to being. 

Magazine grows in circulation, what?

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article in the 2/2/16 issue about a glossy magazine called Garden and Gun -- a great name for a magazine. It's a southern lifestyle magazine and has seen circulation rise 30 percent in the past five years. Ad pages have also increased. 

Why? 

Readers like the content. It's a fun mix of southern living and hobby hunting. It's an interesting business story and goes to show (as Hippo has) that the mere act of printing on paper isn't the problem with declines in newspapers and magazines. It's the content. 

Amazon, Google love print

I've written about this before but it bears repeating: the tech giants use print too. Not only does Google use magazines for its Youtube campaign, but  they use direct mail for their Adwords program.

Now Amazon is joining them. 

I bring this up because we regularly encounter small business owners who say they are doing all digital. That's just nuts. We encourage customers to use digital as part of a broader marketing campaign. Clearly, the big tech boys are not only using digital. 

When Google Can't be Trusted

Googe with $80 billion a year in sales uses volunteers to report problems with maps and Internet scammers that fake physical addresses. Volunteers. No wonder the company is so profitable. 

The New York Times did an article on how most listings for locksmiths are fakes. Here's a link to the story. Google charges $30 a click through for locksmiths in many urban marketings because competition for those keywords is so fierce. Problem is, most advertisers are fakes. They are lead generation businesses that promise $30 lock services and then when the guys gets there they take advantage of the customer and charge many many more times that. 

It's a nice little trick. They trick Google into thinking they are brick and mortar operations and come up in searches by consumers as such. Unsuspecting people call them only to be duped into paying exorbitant fees. 

Google says it's trying to stop the fraud but because their service is based on volunteers the data isn't correct. More than that, according to the article, fraudsters themselves become volunteers to help identify their own fakes. Great system. 

In the end, Google can't be trusted to provide accurate data. It's easily tricked. 

It's a different ballgame with something printed like a magazine or newspaper. Though it's possible to trick us, it's a lot harder and there is a clear trail to follow. That's probably why trust in those things remains so high and people don't trust online listings. Understandable. In Arizona for example, Google showed 6,600 locksmiths when there are in fact about 600 in actuality. That's a lot of fakes 

Ad Blocking Online Takes Off

In the past 12 months ad blocking software use increased by 41 percent.

According to PageFair ad blocking reduced publisher income by $22 billion in 2015. That's a scary number. This makes it even hard for digital publishers to earn money from their content. 

To me that's the key issue with digital ads as a main revenue source for a publication. For online ads to generate enough revenue, either content prices have to be very low (and that means low quality) or your audience needs to be national or international in nature and huge. Clickbait is a byproduct of the need for lots of eyeballs from all sorts of people. Are we really ever going to see that kind of traffic for local news and information? Never.

The market rightly places most online ads at a lower rate per thousand views than print magazines or television. Online is a tough environment to attract attention and break through the clutter. 

Forbes: Facebook Ads a Bad Investment for Small Businesses

Forbes contributor Elan Dekel goes into some detail about a problem many small and new businesses face on Facebook. If they want large numbers of likes (a few thousand) they need to pay for them by using Facebook advertising ($.27-$.57 each like) and then when they want to send a post to their new fans that they just paid Facebook to recruit they have to pay again in the $5 to $10 per thousand views range. Derek found that fewer than 3 percent of his fans were seeing his posts for organically (a term for free). To get larger numbers of a few hundred to a few thousand of his own fans, he had to pay, and though the amounts seemed small -- $5 in some cases -- the corresponding audience was small. Hippo has found that in many cases the CPM for Facebook ads can run into the $20 to $60 -- well above the $5 that Hippo charges. 

Here's a link to Dekel's Forbes story.  Here is another article on Facebook return on investment. More troubling to local brick and mortar businesses is that most of these examples are online. It's even hard to convert people from digital to physical. 

Interestingly, Facebook has done all of this quite deliberately to, they say, improve the non-commercial aspect of Facebook. In other words, Facebook was becoming too filled with businesses' posts and Facebook wanted to dial that back. Facebook rewards viral messages from both non-businesses and businesses. If you as a business on Facebook can create content that is shared you will get a lot of free views. But this  is a tall order for small small businesses.

Tech loves Print

From Apple's heavy use of glossy magazines for branding to YouTube's, tech giants use a lot of print (including Google Ad Words use of direct mail). One of the more interesting developments, has been the growth of Internet sellers' catalogs.

Printing Impressions reports that 2016 expects to be a huge year for catalogs and the main driver of that business are Internet sellers. Studies have shown that the printed catalog drives heavy traffic and sales. LL Bean sure believes that. For a while I was getting one of those catalog every few days. But it worked. I ended up buying a jacket from them. Here is a Wall Street Journal article on all the catalogs. 

Most Popular Rolling Stone Cover

How times have changed. Rolling Stone's most popular cover of 2015 was its Stevie Nicks cover. This points to Rolling Stone's aging reader. On the other hand, People's worst cover of 2015 was its Pope Francis cover. 

Hippo's most popular cover of the year was its Hippo Best Of -- traditionally it's the most picked up issue. This year though we had a bit of a surprise in a cover about drug dealing in New Hampshire (Nov. 5, 2015). We normally see a small drop off in pick ups for newsier covers, but not this one. It has a return rate of 1.7 percent -- below our average of 2 percent. 

Facebook Sharing Takes a Hit

Facebook has a content problem. According to a study by GlobalWeb Index only 34 percent of Facebook users share anything on the site in a month. This follows a huge decrease in organic Facebook sharing. As Facebook was growing posts could reach almost all your friends, but in the past year Facebook has purposefully throttled back the sharing to prevent people from over sharing. Most effected were businesses who use the social site to promote specials. In Hippo's case, we went from reaching about 25 percent of our users (through our various Facebook pages) to just a few percent. The message was clear -- pay up or you won't reach the people who say they want to be reached by you. My feeling on the news feed is that it's becoming  like an inbox that is full of so much stuff I can't find the stuff I want to see. 

A small aside, GlobalWeb Index has some great data on their blog -- for example people prefer free shipping than next day shipping. Makes sense. But good to know. 

Digital Ad Spending to Overtake TV Ad Spending

The New York Times reported Monday, December 7, 2015, that ad spending on the digital side is not only surpassing TV but taking from it. In the past digital was taking from print budgets but many on the ad buying side feel that the print offers some new value (and there is less to take now) and are now taking from TV's budget. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm a skeptic of some digital ads (the intrusive ones), especially on mobile devices where up to one third of click through are accidental. Some of these ads are killing the user experience. Can you imagine ads on TV is they floated through your show? That's what many on the pure digital side are doing. Does that really help sell things? Doubt it. 

Give Me a Print Ad

Most people, according to a national survey by MarketingSherpa, like to get their communication from companies from print ads. Behind print ads (47%) is email on smartphone (37%), radio ads (24%), text messages (20%), billboards (17%), none (15%), in-person (15%), company's mobile app (12%), location-based promotions (9%), other (9%), push notifications from apps (6%), transit ads (5%) and finally in-app ads (4%). 

What's striking is how people just don't want mobile ads though they don't mind email on their phones. I think this speaks to peoples' disdain for ads that get in the way. 

The study also asked what peoples' prefered way of receiving updates and promotions. There mail got the highest percentage at 54 percent with email (though at a frequency they chose) at 49 percent. Company websites came in at 38 percent and only 20 percent wanted it on social media. This underscores the danger in using social media for brazen commercial purposes.