Looking for Upscale, Educated Customers? Advertise in Newspapers

By Karen Axelton

Are you looking to reach educated, affluent customers with money to spend? Then consider advertising with newspapers (in print or online).

With so much focus today on online advertising and social media, you might think advertising in newspapers is old hat. Think again. New research from Scarborough Media shows that newpaper advertising is still an effective way to reach potential customers—especially if your target customer is well-educated and affluent.

Much has been made of the drop in print newspaper ad sales, and comScore reports that between 2005 and 2009 newspapers’ total print ad revenues dropped 47.7 percent from $47.4 billion to $24.8 billion. But online ad revenues grew during the same period—and the good news for you as an advertiser is that online ads are typically cheaper than print ads.

Newspapers are still widely read when you take into account both print and online formats. In the fourth quarter of 2010, 62 percent of all Internet users 18 and up visited a newspaper website. What’s more, newspaper websites attract desirable demographics; comScore found they reach 58 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds and 73 percent of people in households earning more than $100,000 a year.

Still more recent data from Scarborough Research shows that more than 71 percent of adults, or 165.6 million people, read a newspaper in print or online in the last week. Some 80 percent of adults in households earning $100,000 or more read a newspaper in print or online each week. In an average week:

• 85 percent of adults who have done post-graduate work or who have advanced degrees read a print newspaper or visited a newspaper website
• 81 percent of women in a management or professional position with a household income of $100,000 a year or more read a newspaper in print or online; 73 percent read the print product
• 76 percent of adults who spent more than $500 on fine jewelry in the last year read a newspaper in print or online
• 80 percent of adults who spent $500 or more on business clothing, the figure is

77 percent for those who spent more than $500 on women’s shoes read a newspaper in print or online.

Who benefits most from newspaper advertising? Local businesses or those with an e-commerce presence that enables customers to shop everywhere. Both online and offline, newspaper advertising has special advantages by allowing you to target consumers very narrowly based on their locations and interests (i.e., which parts of the paper they read). And that’s a smart strategy for any entrepreneur.

Image Courtesy: Karen Axelton

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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