Advertising in Newspapers versus Free Press Coverage

Advertising in newspapers can be expensive and potentially ineffective for several reasons, while earning free press or media coverage can be a valuable goal for companies. Here's an explanation of these dynamics:

1. Cost of Advertising: Advertising in newspapers typically involves significant costs. Newspapers charge for ad space based on factors such as the size of the ad, its placement, and the circulation of the publication. Depending on the size and reach of the newspaper, the expenses can be substantial, especially for small or budget-conscious businesses.

2. Limited Reach and Targeting: While newspapers have a loyal readership, their reach may be limited compared to digital channels. The audience is typically confined to the local or regional area where the newspaper circulates. This can restrict targeting opportunities for businesses seeking a broader or more specific audience.

3. Declining Readership: With the rise of digital media, readership of print newspapers has declined over the years. Many people now consume news and information online through websites, social media, and other digital platforms. As a result, the potential audience for newspaper advertisements has become smaller, reducing their effectiveness.

4. Short Lifespan and Limited Engagement: Newspaper ads have a relatively short lifespan. Once a new edition is published, the older one becomes obsolete. Compared to digital ads or other forms of marketing, newspaper ads may not have the same longevity or continuous exposure to potential customers. Additionally, readers often skim through or skip over ads, leading to limited engagement.

On the other hand, getting free press or media coverage through newspapers and magazines can offer several advantages:

1. Credibility and Trust: When a company or its products/services are featured in news articles or editorial content, it often carries more credibility and trust compared to paid advertisements. Readers tend to view such coverage as unbiased and reliable, which can positively influence their perception of the company.

2. Expanded Reach and Targeting: Media coverage can provide broader exposure beyond the limitations of paid advertising. Depending on the reach and readership of the newspaper or magazine, the coverage can introduce the company to a larger and more diverse audience. It can also help reach specific target markets, especially if the publication focuses on a particular industry or niche.

3. Third-Party Validation: Media coverage acts as a form of third-party validation for the company. When a newspaper or magazine features a company positively, it implies that the company has something noteworthy or valuable to offer. This can enhance brand reputation and attract potential customers who trust the recommendations or opinions provided by the media outlet.

4. Cost-Effective: Compared to paid advertising, media coverage obtained through public relations efforts can be more cost-effective. While it requires investment in PR activities such as press releases, media pitches, and building relationships with journalists, the overall cost can be lower than paid advertising in newspapers.

To leverage the benefits of media coverage, companies should focus on developing relationships with journalists, creating newsworthy stories, and proactively engaging in public relations efforts. By effectively positioning their products, services, or industry expertise, businesses can increase the likelihood of gaining valuable free press from newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets, leading to enhanced brand exposure and credibility.

The Facebook Ad Experiment = Failure

So I recently decided to use $11 (a paltry sum but enough for a small experiment) to see if I could get more book sales by promoting the book on Facebook.

The results?

804 people saw the ad.
29 people "engaged" with the ad.

• 22 Post Likes.
• 1 Post Share.
• 6 people clicked on the image.
• 0 Page Likes.
• 0 Comments.

Zero additional book sales during the time period the ad was up.

Now that the experiment is over it really feels like I was paying 50 cents per Post Like.

Less than 3% of people who saw the ad clicked Like.

Now I do agree that if I was to do this experiment over again I would change things.

#1. I would have included a larger amount of text in the ad itself.
#2. More links in the ad to increase the visible opportunities for people to engage with the ad and click the links.
#3. I would have chosen a different image to promote, something that is more visibly appealing and also more quickly delivers the message of what the book is about.

I would also be tempted in the future to only promote a Facebook post which is ALREADY popular and has more viral potential.

Maybe.

Just maybe if I had to done those things prior to conducting the experiment perhaps there would be more Likes, more Shares, and maybe even a few book sales.

But how many more Likes?

Double, triple?

And there would still be no guarantee of any book sales.

I would have just as much luck promoting the post by Sharing it to various Facebook groups which are thematically on the same topic as the book - a practice which is FREE.

And then there is the time consumption.

I would say I spent 3 hours in the past 10 days monitoring this ad, getting and deleting annoying Facebook Receipts in my email, and the actual time it took to setup the ad in the first place.

And since I value my time at $35 per hour, I have now spent $105 worth of my time conducting an experiment that cost $11. So I am out $116 worth of time and money.

This officially makes Facebook Advertising a complete waste of both time and money.

It would have been faster, more efficient and free to just share the post to 3-5 Facebook groups and I would have gained approximately the same number of Likes.

And Likes are essentially worth nothing unless you can find a way to get sales from new customers.

So some people argue there is no such thing as a failed experiment. You either prove that something is true or it is false. In this case we have proven that Facebook Advertising is a waste of money, and for the time and effort involved, it is quantifiably worse than simply sharing the post for the free.

Also I did some research recently and according to my sources if a person wants to be a "Social Media Influencer" they need to be posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc at least 80 times per week. Not all at once either. They need to space it out to roughly 1 new post almost every 80 minutes you are awake. 11 to 12 posts per day, minimum.

Who has time to do that? People who are obsessed with social media and don't have much of a life, that is who.

So becoming a Social Media Influencer does take a lot of time and effort. You would need to be posting every 80 minutes in an effort to promote yourself, your products, your services, your website, etc.

And there would no doubt be a social cost in making all that effort. So say nothing of lack of sleep, stress and other problems.

So does it make sense to do it yourself? No. Not really. Time wise it makes more sense to pay someone else to do it. And then see how many sales you get during the first week, to see if it is worthwhile.

But in the case of Facebook... when you consider the time it takes to setup an ad, monitor the results... it doesn't make much sense. In that scenario it makes more sense to just share posts than to advertise posts.

In summary...

Facebook Advertising is a complete waste of your money and your time.

The Book Sales Marketing Catch-22

So here is the thing about the online book sales industry, specifically ebooks. If you are unknown author with no reputation, you really need to advertise in order to overcome one serious disadvantage.

• Nobody knows who you are.
• Nobody has read your books.
• Nobody has reviewed your books.
• Nobody is buying your books.

Now you might think "Wait, that is 4 things!"

Except it isn't. This is a Catch-22 situation. That makes it a singular problem.

Authors who self-publish are stuck with the current system. They post ebooks on Amazon Kindle (and/or Kobo), and then nobody reads your books unless they buy them, and nobody buys your books until they read a review, and nobody reviews your books unless they already read it. It is the old 3-way catch 22.

To make matters worse, nobody knows who you are so they are really taking a chance at wasting their money when they buy your book. And even if a random person does take that chance, there is no guarantee they will post a review.

So how do you get out of this situation you are in?

#1. Paperback Publishing

It would help if you were actually published by a conventional publisher. Having physical books to sell certainly would help. You could do book signings at local bookstores. If your books later become more successful you could travel to various English speaking countries and do book signings overseas. If you became really successful (like George R. R. Martin or J. K. Rowling) you could even end up doing book signings in non-English countries because your books have been translated into other languages.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Getting a conventional publisher to even sit up and take notice of you is a difficult task by itself. So for the remainder lets assume you are happy with online publishing instead.

#2. Self-Marketing

You really need to advertise and market your work. For many writers this means they are self-marketing, which is often poorly done and it will feel very defeatist if they spend a lot of time marketing themselves but don't get any actual sales. eg. Lets say they only promoted themselves on Facebook and Twitter, didn't really know what they were doing, and ultimately just wasted their time on social media.

If you do decide to do Self-Marketing, you should really track the number of hours spent doing this and calculate a "wage to yourself". eg. $15 per hour, to give yourself an idea of how much time you are spending by giving that time a monetary value.

#3. Hire Someone Else

You should seriously consider hiring someone else to do your marketing for you. eg. designSEO.ca. This saves you time personally which is better spent writing or spending time with your family, and it allows you to know that your marketing is being done by a professional. Now this doesn't mean you should cease self-marketing, by all means you can and should continue to self-market if you have extra time to do so.

All of this ultimately means you should decide what kind of budget you want to spend on advertising. See below.

#4. Annual Marketing Budget

Your annual marketing budget should be tied to your sales, but since you have zero sales during the first year you have to make a gamble. All advertising is effectively gambling. So what is a good amount to start with?

Well, lets answer this question by asking yourself: "How much money would I hope to make in my first year of advertising my work?"

If your answer was $2000, you should probably set a budget of $666.66. For the sake of even numbers we shall say $660. Roughly one third of your hopeful payout during the next year.

$660 should be more than enough to get 22 good quality links on various websites, at a rate of $30 per link. For best results the links should be accompanied by honest book reviews (hopefully also positive book reviews). You really should not be paying for a book review / advertising that is anything less than 4 stars out of 5.

Notice also that this method of budgeting scales based upon your income in the future. If you are making $200,000 per year, you could in theory spend $66,660 on advertising the following year... but by then you probably don't need to. You could spend perhaps $20,000 to to $50,000 per year on advertising and be quite content with your results. You might eventually cease advertising entirely, relying entirely upon the fact that you now have some name recognition.

#5. Judging your Results

If you manage to make anywhere from $650 to $2000 (or more) then your marketing campaign was technically a success. You might have only roughly broke even if you got less than $660, but the marketing campaign is technically working. The 2nd year you might make $1300 or more and the 3rd year you might make $1950 or more. So while that isn't the amount you hoped for, it is still technically progress as you build name recognition online.

If you made $200 to $650 then clearly the advertising is working, but not as effectively as you might have thought. You need to retune your advertising to make it more effective. This doesn't mean you should stop completely, it simply means you need to figure out what is turning away customers. Is your book cover depressing? Is your plot boring? Something is wrong and you need to rethink and retune.

If you made less than $200, something is definitely wrong. Rethink everything. Take a hard look at everything, ask other people what they think you might be doing wrong, and take their advice seriously.

#6. Evaluate your Marketing Strategy vs Success

Even if you are succeeding in your goals, you should also pause to reevaluate what is working and what is not once per year. You may have learned new ways to market more effectively and then implement them. If you have hired someone else to do your marketing for you, then this is a good time to sit down with them and have a friendly chat about the best ways to make improvements.





Notes

Book sales are not the only industry that can benefit from this style of budget marketing. For example, if you were a professional painter and making $30,000 per year, you might consider spending $3000 per year on marketing your work.

The difference is that a painter wouldn't be spending that $3000 on online marketing, they would instead be spending it on gallery shows. Having an one week gallery show might cost $600 to $1000, so depending on what they are doing they might be having 3 to 5 shows per year based on that budget.

The more gallery shows the artist has, the more famous they become - assuming their paintings are good - and consequently the more sales they get, and the higher prices they can command. The beauty of gallery shows is that buyers go there, look at art, can see the physical art piece, and if they really like it then they purchase it. Some art collectors will even purchase art pieces as investments, knowing that if an artist is more famous that they can resell the art piece later on for a hefty profit.

The names of the artists below aren't particularly famous, but their paintings are still priced at $8,300 and $12,000. So even lesser known artists can command some serious prices.

Duane Nickerson's painting for $8300.

Jennifer Walton's painting for $12,000.

Michael Snow's poster - Not for sale. I included this for fun because Michael Snow is actually very famous. His works are usually in museums. This is just a poster however.

Canadian Organized Crime Vs Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

This is actually an older post from 2014 which was published on a different source. A source that is no more, as the website it was published on has been deleted.

I am therefore reposting it here.

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

Did you know that amongst the many activities run by organized crime, one of them is running spam and scam operations?

That means if you get spam from a local source and it looks fishy then it probably is the mafia that is running the scam. eg. If you receive a fake email from the Bank of Montreal asking you to login in to your Bank of Montreal account via a third party website, that website is probably owned directly or indirectly by a member of the Montreal Mafia.

In other words the Rizzuto family. Or people working for them.

Those scammy emails that are pretending to be from something else, often a bank or other financial institution, are what is known as “phishing attacks”. They are phishing for your private banking information in an effort to get into your bank account and then steal your money.

It is that simple. Fake website that looks like it belongs to a bank. Fake email pretending to be from the bank asking you to login. You go to the website, they record your data, within 5 minutes your bank account is cleaned out and all your money has been wired to an off-shore account.

Now there are a variety of other scams out there. You are probably already familiar with the cheque scams, the Nigerian Prince scams, the lottery winnings scams, and so forth.

They all have a different angle. Your bank information, your credit card info, possibly even after your passwords for different social media websites because sometimes people use the same passwords for their bank accounts.

Right: Canada Anti-Spam Legislation meeting in Toronto 2014

The good news however is that the Canadian government is now starting to fight back.

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) will go into effect on July 1st 2014 and will result in 35 federal investigators going after Canada’s biggest spam offenders, toppling over the biggest spammers in Canada like dominoes and slapping the big offenders with fines of up to $10 million.

However when it comes to phishing attacks run by the Montreal Mafia I am worried CASL will come up short. After all, its the mafia. How are they going to catch a gang of thugs which have been running illegal operations for decades and rarely ever get caught by the police?

Case in point the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) years ago tried to collect on taxes owed by Vito Rizzuto, the godfather of the Montreal Mafia. Instead of receiving money CRA somehow mysteriously wrote the crime boss a cheque giving him more money – an incident which has since been reported by employees at CRA as highly suspicious as to how the crime boss managed to rob the Canada Revenue Agency of thousands of dollars.

Thus if the Canada Revenue Agency cannot catch these crooks, what makes the CRTC (the government regulator which will be in charge of enforcing CASL) think they can catch them?

Sheer gall?

I don’t think they will. I would LOVE it if these crooks were caught (and so would Canadian banks), but I don’t think it is going to happen.

Earlier this morning I went to a meeting in Toronto organized by Vigorate Digital to talk about the new anti-spam laws. Vigorate Digital does email marketing in Toronto and is therefore one of those squeaky clean companies which wants to go on being squeaky clean by upholding the new laws.

Right: I went to the meeting with my colleague Robert Campbell, who works in online marketing.

During the meeting I was handed the microphone and I asked several questions, basically whether political parties would be exempt from the new laws (which they unfortunately are, and I think they should not be because I feel they should still be forced to use an “opt in” / consent system), and I asked how would these new laws be enforced?

And the speaker explained how the CRTC will dedicate 35 federal investigators to finding the biggest spammers, going after them financially with fines of up to $10 million, and so forth.

Which to me means that the mafia run phishing operations will be unaffected because they can simply drop out of sight, use off shore bank accounts, refuse to pay the fines, and so forth.

The CRTC would need to prove an electronic paper trail going back to the mafia in order to actually catch them and convict them of breaking Canada’s spam laws – let alone convicting them of fraud, theft, etc.

And on the rare case, recover money defrauded from people’s bank accounts due to large scale spam operations.

Conclusions

I think CASL is a step in the right direction in cutting back on spam, phishing attacks, scams, and so forth – but I think the CRTC will want their investigators to be carrying firearms if they are going up against crooks like the Rizzuto family.

Deleted 3 old blogs today...

January 2nd 2019.

So today we deleted 3 old blogs that we haven't updated in years.

Several reasons.

1. We no longer used the blogs in question for advertising (or anything else).

2. We had already cannibalized the blogs in question for their content and repurposed that content elsewhere.

3. It is 2019 and we felt like cleaning house, throwing out old blogs / old stuff.

Blogging is valuable as a method of advertising and building an audience. However if you rarely update a blog or have quite a few (we manage about 200 different blogs) then it just sits there, unused and unappreciated.

Eventually after a blog collects dust long enough the best thing you can do is cannibalize the content, use the content elsewhere in a blog of a similar topic, and then delete the blog which is no longer of any use.

And now here we are...

Writing a blog post about deleting 3 other blogs.

A new year is a good time to do something new. Start fresh.

In our case, it is a matter of fixing old things that need fixing.

Make Do and Mend was a motto promoted during WWII in Britain, promoting the idea that people should not buy new things and should ration their supplies by focusing on repairing things.

As a concept, it isn't something people do these days in our modern capitalist consumerism society. I should know, I work in the marketing industry. Consumerism is what I promote.

However from a business perspective saving money is also of value.

Say for example you have old signage outside your store. Something which needs some repairs and a lick of paint.

Does it make sense to replace the signage entirely, just tossing out the old signage?

Or does it make more sense to repair the old sign, repaint it, and thus it can serve its purpose once more with renewed vigor?

A wise businessman (or businesswoman) would choose the 2nd option. Repair, repaint and reuse.

You know the old adage for recycling?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Except the Reuse part is kind of useless if you don't also Repair.

In blogging terms we use the word Cannibalize*. We take the old content, copy/paste it to a different location, and delete the old website that is no longer used. There is more to it than that however. First you want to set up a redirect code so that visitors to the old website are automatically redirected to the new website.

* Cannibalize is an ugly word, but it is the word used. Basically it just means we are reusing the old content elsewhere.

After a suitable amount of time has gone by and visitors to the old website are rare, the old site is then deleted.

During the process of copy/pasting the old content, you may also decide the content needs to be updated. This could be done immediately, or it can be delayed until a better time. eg. Delayed until you have time available to do the needed updates. Updating the content (repairing it?) doesn't always have to be done right away.

But if you are in a mood to repair / fix things, like we are right now, then now is as good a time as any.

So why not? Just get it done now.

Just do it now. Get it over with.

Doesn't have to be a big fix either. Sometimes a bandaid solution works just as well and is a more efficient use of your time.