Just a quick note to let you all know that the cosportunity blog has been moved to our own hosted site, upstatesc.townplanner.com/blog.  Please take a minute to update your settings and go on over and check out our new site.

Where do you place your ad to guarantee that it will be seen?  A billboard?  On television?  The newspaper?  All of these are good options and they all have pros and cons associated with them, and a certain percentage of viewers will see ads in each of these mediums.  Let’s take television as an example.  I’m a channel surfer, commercials come on, I change the channel.  In fact, I usually choose two programs and flip back and forth.  But I also know people who are more likely to watch the commercials than the programming itself.

One of my favorite area media companies has chosen some unique locations to guarantee their clients ads will be seen – they call it captive audience marketing.  You’ve probably seen them, in area restrooms and gas pumps.  And you’ve read their ads, because you’re standing or sitting there for a couple of minutes and can’t help it.   I have heard some female friends express some invasion of privacy feelings towards these ads, but that also means that they saw the ads.

Another way to increase your impressions is to place your ad in or on something that the audience interacts with or finds value from.  Pens, coffee mugs, and calendars are a few examples.  These items get used on a daily basis and are even appreciated.  Writing this article just triggered a brilliant idea – why hasn’t someone sold the ad space next to the daily crossword puzzles, or in the middle of the puzzle?   Design a puzzle around a small ad space and the ad will receive multiple impressions, and from a very defined demographic!  Remember – you heard it here first.

When you received that postcard reminder in the mail did you say “yeah, I already know about it”, or did you say “gee, that’s right, I completely forgot that was coming up!”  Chances are, you forgot about the upcoming appointment because it wasn’t on the forefront of your mind, and not just because it may be an unpleasant experience for you.  Reminding your potential customers about your business is no different, consumers need to be reminded that your business is there, ready to meet their needs, and willing to provide a positive experience.  If they haven’t heard from you or needed your services in last six months, chances are they don’t even know you exist.  If you’d like to remind the community about your business on a daily basis, please check out Upstate Town Planner.

This sheet pulled data from the Advertising Specialties Impact and Exposures Study performed in October of 2008.  I haven’t seen the actual study to be able to intelligently comment on how the study was conducted and what kinds of factors they took into account, but I can say that it is consistent with other findings I have seen.  Regardless, the fun point for me is that they found that advertising on billboards had the lowest cosportunity of $0.003.  Just above that was promotional products with a cosportunity of $0.004

I have walked through the calculation for the cosportunity of Upstate Town Planner with several groups and it always comes out nearly the same.  The average cosportunity for a  yearly campaign in Upstate Town Planner is $0.00036!  Yes, we have three zereos before we get to a significant digit.  This means that the average cosportunity for Town Planner is somewhere around 10 times less than the nearest media type.

Think that Town Planner isn’t cost effective?  Take a look again and realize that our shelf life and interactivity is what provides the most exposure for your business.

Cosportunity Comparison

June is Aquarium month – promote all things fish and fish related.  If your business doesn’t deal with aquariums directly, perhaps you could run a promotional give away with the prize being tickets to your closest aquarium, like the Georgia Aquarium.

June is Dairy Month and who doesn’t like cheese?  Visit one of your local farms to learn a little about dairy products, where they come from, and how they’re made.  Two local farms around the Greenville area are Happy Cow and Live Oak.

June is Fireworks Safety Month and it should be!  In preparation for the country’s birthday celebration hold a clinic on fireworks safety.  And let all the local media know about the clinics, with all the fireworks accidents every year it’ll be a story they pick up.

June is Turkey Lovers Month and who would have thought!  Any restaurant can use this to their advantage, publicize turkey lovers month and invite everyone in for a 1/2 Thanksgiving celebration on the fourth Thursday of the month.

June is National Accordion Awareness Month.  Have a polka club, let everyone know that the reason to come out and visit is because it’s accordion month.  Don’t have an accordion or want to learn about the instrument, go to your local music store like Musical Innovations in Mauldin, if they don’t have an accordion they’ll certainly know where you can find one.

For past ideas, check out the cosportunity blog.

This business owner has been advertising his new business in one of the local newspapers that comes out once a week.    He quickly realized just how affordable the calendar is, since it’s on display everyday.  The paper only gets exposure once a week and that’s if your ad gets seen.  Take that ad price and multiply by four and you get a monthly cost.  This monthly cost for 4 exposures was more than the price for one month in Town Planner.  Now factor in that the calendar gets multiple exposures from multiple people during the month and you’re looking a much better cosportunity.

The math for this particular instance says that the cosportunity for Town Planner is 4.52 times cheaper than the cosportunity for the newspaper.    Would you consider advertising in something that costs more than 4 times less per opportunity, while also providing the community with a great resource tool?

First, there are multiple databases in the Reference USA system, 3 of which relate to the US;  business, residential, and health care.   If your trying to research the US residential market and want to see how many households in the 29681 zip code have a median home value over 250k, you’ll find 757 records.  If you need to find out how many female dentists there are in the 29607 zip code you’ll find 22 records.  If you need to find out how many businesses in the 29662 zip code have 2 – 9 computers you’ll find 313 records.  All of these searches can be performed by clicking on the custom search tab after your database has been chosen.  The quick search tab is highlighted by default, one great search feature on this tab is the capability to search by phone number.

These example searches only scratch the surface of the capabilities to research your market.  Reference USA is only one of many tools available for the small business owner to use.  It’s a particularly useful one, but there may be a better one for your business among the 85 available through the Greenville public library.

Upstate Town Planner was a sponsor for a local event held today, Launch Greenville, put on by Jake and Bridgette Hayes with Enterprise Launch.  This event was a one day seminar with all kinds of great information for small and start up local businesses.    Town Planner is a great product to get the word out about small and local businesses, so sponsoring the event was a natural fit.  As far as calculating the cosportunity for this sponsorship, well, that’s a little more difficult.  There were attendees who were exposed to my logo today, plus all the online promotion that has been done and will continue to be done.  The number of opportunities will continue to increase over time.

How do I know there will be results from this sponsorship?  Because there have already been results.  Most people I talked to today commented “oh, you’re a sponsor” when I introduced myself, and that’s what it’s about.   Name recognition, brand recognition, any kind of recognition, I’ll take it.

April 7th is No Housework Day – Need anymore be said.  Create all kinds of promos geared toward the people that normally perform all the housework.  Create a contest in which one of your customer’s will win a month of free maid service from a local company like Greenville Maids.   Or just invite everyone to your local restaurant or bar to avoid the housework waiting at home.

April 10th is Golfer’s Day – Use this day to drive traffic to your golf course, golf store, or driving range.

April 11th is Eight Track Tape Day – Does anyone even remember eight track tapes?  Does anyone have any old eight track tapes sitting around?  Invite people to your store and provide a giveaway to anyone who brings in an eight track tape.

April 13th is Scrabble Day – Sponsor a local scrabble contest, or pick out 10 letters and let your customers spell out the biggest word they can come up with, of course, provide a prize to the winner.

April 15th is Titanic Remembrance Day – Take the focus off of the fact that it’s tax day.  Hopefully your taxes have already been completed by your local accountant like Mike McCourry.