The Writing Life

These days, in my view, one of the most important aspects of marketing your products or services is deciding where to market.

There are so many options out there, which include newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, as well as the "newer" media of web advertising, e-mail marketing and social media.

At the end of the day, it requires simple study.

1. What is the audience, in terms of age, gender and location? Nashville Parent may not have the subscriber base as the Tennesseean, but it is highly targeted, geared toward parents and families, and may be ideal for a high-end daycare or pre-school to advertise.
2. What is the income of the audience? When I worked at a twice-weekly paper in Texas, we had advertisers such as the Jaguar dealer in the nearest big city. Why? Our county was the 20th highest in terms of personal income in the United States.
3. Where is your audience? Odds are, if you are targeting older teens to younger 20s, you don't want certain types of advertising. But the web and social media are ideal. I mean, every teenager on the planet is on Facebook, or so it seems.
4. What is the real audience? Recently, in one town where I sometimes deal with advertising, a new online-only media outlet started up. Nothing wrong with a new start up, but they have no numbers at all to sell. So what audience are you reaching? It's unkown.

It takes time, effort and energy, but studying the possible marketing venues carefully before investing will generate a much greater return on investment.