Where Do Consumers Learn About Local Businesses?

By Rieva Lesonsky

Online or off, it seems users still get most of their information about their local communities via newspapers, according to a study from the Pew Research Center, the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. That means, for small business owners seeking to attract members of the local community, newspapers—both print and online—are still a smart place to advertise.

Most Americans (69 percent) said that if their local newspaper went out of business, it wouldn’t have a major impact on their ability to keep up with information and news about their community. Younger adults, age 18-29, were especially unconcerned. A full 75 percent said the disappearance of the local newspaper wouldn’t greatly affect their ability to get local information. And among home broadband users, 74 percent said that losing their paper would have no impact or only a minor impact on their ability to get local information.

Despite that statement, the survey found show that newspapers are actually much more important to respondents than they indicated. Newspapers (both print and online versions, though primarily print) either ranked first or tied for first as the source that survey respondents relied on most for 11 of the 16 different kinds of local information covered in the survey.

But the importance of print newspapers is likely to decline rapidly in the coming years. The Internet (defined in this study as Web-only outlets) was the number-one source of information about restaurants and local businesses. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said the Internet is their preferred source for this information; between 17 and 18 percent named newspapers as their second most preferred source.

For the 79 percent of Americans who are online, and for Americans ages 18-39 in particular, the Internet ranks as either the first or second most commonly used source of information for 15 out of the 16 local topics the survey asked about.

What does this mean for your business? While newspapers are still important, their influence seems to be lessening and will likely continue to dwindle as broadband becomes more widespread and younger users grow up. Advertising in print newspapers may be crucial depending on the demographics of your audience, but hedge your bets by advertising in online newspapers and other online venues, too.

Image Courtesy: Karen Axelton

This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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