REACH magazine, Dayton’s favorite coupon magazine, is again featuring the Dayton Vectren Air Show Presented by Kroger on the front cover. However, in the past it has always been the feature cover on the July issue. This year the air show has been moved earlier in the month of July (Hopefully this with help with the heat issue that so often arrives in late July), so in order to get the word out earlier, we featured the air show cover on our JUNE edition of REACH arriving in-homes the first week of June.

Here is the cover with details both on the cover and inside about how to get your ticket and the dates of the show.

Why have a clean cover without coupons on it?

From time to time REACH magazine will feature local major events to more effectively connect with the consumers in the Dayton and Cincinnati area. Reds baseball, Dayton Dragons baseball, Wright state Raiders basketball, and more have been featured on our covers. As a business owner you can take advantage of the good will that REACH has generated in the community through these community tie-ins. Consumers love the fact that there are no coupons on the cover of REACH Magazine and that they can review the magazine throughout the month intact (not with a cut up cover like some other magazines in Dayton, some of the other coupon magazines have coupons right on the front cover which is a major disadvantage to the businesses which advertise inside since it becomes more likely that the magazine will be discarded based on appearance or based on it being cut up ).

Consider advertising in Dayton’s most popular coupon magazine

If you own a small or medium-sized business in the Dayton or Cincinnati area and would like to know more about this powerful targeted direct mail advertising, please call Peter DeMott at 937-478-6222 or email peter@photosbypdemott.com . Peter has almost 20 years experience and is highest sales for JUNE for both Dayton and Cincinnati REACH magazine. He must be doing something right for his clients because they stick with him and REACH magazine for many years.

REACH offers:

• Target marketing areas so you can focus geographically the consumers that are most likely to become your regular repeating customers.

• Full market advertisingg to 260,000 homes in the Dayton market and over 550,000 homes in the Cincinnati market.

• Complete ad development and advice on incentive offers that have perceived value among consumers. One critical aspect of incentive marketing is the importance of capturing the attention of consumers with offers that they value enough to respond to. Poor ad development can lead to poor results.

• Online coupons coincide with distribution by direct mail of your coupon ad

• Experienced sales consultants who want your business to be successful. We are not just selling ad space as some advertising sales people do, but rather we present our knowledge of what makes consumers take action in your category of business.

• A magazine that consumers LOVE more than any other coupon magazine in the Dayton market. Consumers vote by responding more to REACH Magazine than any other magazine in the market.

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My question is, as a business owner in Dayton, OHIO what search queries might you use to find out about advertising opportunities:

ROI advertising (Return on Investment) in Dayton

Newspaper advertising in Dayton

Radio Advertising in Dayton

TV advertising in Dayton

Direct mail advertising in Dayton

Target marketing in Dayton

Or what?

Where are the businesses looking to grow their businesses in Dayton, OHIO?

Growing your business in Dayton, OHIO

Here are a few things that I have written about that are important for you as a small business owner to know if you are going to grow your business in Dayton, Ohio.

What works there may not work here

1) Not every community is the same. What works in Cincinnati does not always work in Dayton and vice versa. It is important to find what is popular with people who are your prospective customers.

Take advantage of Google’s search engine which targets local first – IT’s FREE

2) There are lots of little free things that you can do to make your self more visible on the internet. I posted one article about Google Places. You can put your store location on the map and since Google puts more weight on the locality of searches, by doing this you increase the chances that consumers near your store locations will see your business on their searches.

Answer your darn phone

3) Make sure that your phones get answered and in a professional manner. Consumers are busy these days. If they get your voice mail or a recording they WILL NOT LEAVE A MESSAGE. Our company now offers Call Tracking to our advertisers and it is an eye-opening experience when I play back 10 calls for my client and 7 were “hang ups” because they got to voice mail or a recording. Sure, a referral might go ahead and leave their name and number, but someone responding to an ad is not likely to do so. Depending on the type of business that you represent, your answering machine or voice mail may say, “who knows what kind of place this is? ” Or, “I refuse to leave my name and play phone tag with this business for a week.” Or “I wonder if this guy just works out of his garage or something.”  If you spend money on advertising and marketing that generates phone calls, you have to answer the phones or you are just wasting a lot of money and when the ad does not work you are likely blaming the wrong person.

Watch your online reputation

4) Did you know that you can have Google watch your name online for you. It is important that if someone says something bad about your business, that you respond quickly to correct the situation. By setting up words for Google to watch for you, you will be notified when your business name is mentioned online. I had one advertising customer, a jeweler, who was not very internet savvy. First their web address (URL) expired and was taken by another company. So, when you looked up their name with .com after it, it went into a large national website selling jewelry. Second, when you did a search online for their name, there was one nasty customer who was posting bad things about them all over the place. When I asked them about this, they explained what had happened I could easily see their side of the story, however this customer was going unanswered where ever they wanted to be nasty and since their website was gone, guess what ? The entire first page was bad things about this company when you did a search. If they posted a paragraph response whenever this guy posted explaining that he was offered insurance, but refused then lost something and expected the jeweler to be responsible for it, I think that most people would get the picture. In addition, this jeweler needed to get themselves onto the first page and push these comments onto page two or three at the least. Nice folks, but I don’t know what long-term effects this might have on their business and survival if they continue to ignore the problem.

That’s it for today. More to follow, but I would love to hear from YOU. If you are business owner in Dayton, OHIO, how are you learning more about marketing, advertising and promoting your business? Do you go online? If so, what words do you use to search with. I’m curious.

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The surprising thing is that most businesses know little about what their customers look at and use such as this potential customer. Many businesses think it does not really matter that much where you put your incentive offer to bring in new customers and that is why many think, “coupons don’t work for me.” They tried one here and one there and got very little response, but did they place an ad where Dayton area consumers say the LOVE TO LOOK for special offers from local businesses? Perhaps not.

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Call tracking is a service that we offer to our clients whereby we give their print ad in REACH Magazine a special phone number. The call goes directly to the businesses phone, but along the way the consumers hears “this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes”. It is seamless and does not cause any delays or problems with the calls.

Once we have that phone number assigned to their ad, every call is tallied and recorded. Was the phone answered? When did the call occur? How long did the call last? A weekly report is emailed to me and the client for review. With the click of a button, the business owner can listen to calls that came in from this particular ad and see exactly how his staff is treating prospective customers.

This is an incredible tool for business

The owner of the company gets a call tracking report each Monday via email. It shows the call volume on each day from the previous week from this specific advertising effort. With the click on a button, the owner can listen to a few of the phone calls. We can see EXACTLY how many calls came in from THIS SPECIFIC AD.  If there were hang-ups or the phone was not answered that is recorded as well.

Comparing with other ad sources – Winner or Epic Fail?

In some cases I am providing more than one call tracking phone number to my clients so that they can compare REACH Magazine or ValPak with their other ad sources. This morning I met with a client to pick up a payment. We discussed one ad source that was under performing and he mentioned again that REACH Magazine is their strongest lead generator of all the publications they participate in. Another WIN for REACH Magazine, another EPIC FAIL for one of the other players in the market.

Are you a business that advertises but does not know which advertising is working for you?

Give me a call and lets set you up with an ad in REACH Magazine. While we are at it, perhaps we can monitor some of the other advertising you are currently doing. You will be able to clearly determine which ad sources are providing you with your best ROI (return on investment)

Here at two pages of a report to show you the type of information you would receive each Monday in your email. I am not showing the last page which has button links to the audio files and information of each and every call received as this has private information on it.

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There are so many scams around for FREE iPads and the like, but this one is for real and it is local to the Dayton Ohio market. Odds of winning are pretty good compared to the lottery or anything like that and of course it costs you nothing to enter to win. My concern is that the winner will not believe it is real when they get notified that they won.

But, even with that, those who sign up will get one email each Thursday with a bunch of great coupon offers from various businesses that are currently advertising in REACH Magazine. That is two great things. First the businesses that advertise in REACH are getting added value for their advertising purchase, and second, consumers are seeing those companies more frequently adding to their name recognition and increasing loyalty.

Why not enter to win and see if you like the weekly coupons too. Of course you can opt out any time as well.

Back Cover of May REACH Magazine in Dayton

LOOK at the back cover of the May REACH Magazine for details. Definitely a WIN, WIN, for everyone who participates.

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ValPak is a national company and you can download their mobile app and find things based on where you are throughout the entire country. For example if you have the app on your smart phone and you drive to Cincinnati and decide to have lunch with a friend, you can click on the food icon and it will tell you all the restaurant offers starting with the closest one to where you are at that moment. Show the digital coupon when paying and receive the discount right there on the spot.

REACH Magazine has a mobile optimized web site called eREACH.com

Put this one on your link bar of your smart phone. eREACH.com is optimized for mobile and does the same thing as the ValPak app. It figures out where you are and lists the offers under various categories based of the closest one first. Click on redeem coupon and show the person your coupon on your cell phone to redeem the offer.

To top that off, right now I can get your business, if it is in one of our “hot category” lists on the eREACH.com web site at No Charge. Just call me at 937-478-6222 and we can discuss it.

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We have had eREACH.com for some time, but it is now mobile optimised and we are creating premium landing pages for our clients with link backs (SEO Juice) to web pages, Facebook pages, Twitter, Linked In and which have digital coupons.

In addition we now have a BUY IT ONLINE option called YoDEAL that rolled out this spring. Now businesses can promote offers with no up front cost whatsoever and in most cases we include print ads in REACH Magazine along with emails to consumers to promote these deals.

REACH also have a Facebook page to engage with consumers and keep tabs on their wants and desires. This is also an opportunity to share new REACH advertisers with consumers in a medium that they enjoy. We have several connections with other web sites that promote local coupons and special offers in the Dayton area.

For me personally, I participate in the regular educational and networking meetings of a group called New Media Dayton. Their monthly meetings keep me informed and up to date so that I can be informative for my clients in REACH Magazine. They also have a LinkedIn group if you would like to join it and be informed of the monthly topics.

So, here is the new branding for REACH Magazine. What do you think?

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In the spring and early summer lots of people are getting out and seeing what needs to be done around the house. Is it time to clean up the flower beds? Add mulch? Is it time to add a paver patio so that you have more room to entertain and relax in your yard. Maybe you need a roll out awning to provide more shade and comfort when it gets too warm without.

With lots of choices, you need to figure out a way to get noticed

There are also lots of things for families to do. There are so many things to do, that they may never get to you unless you capture their attention with an ad and perhaps an incentive offer. Too many businesses think, if they build it they will come, but over and over again we hear from businesses that end up closing that their mistake was not advertising much at the beginning.

Broadcast advertising is cluttered with political advertising this year

If you are an advertiser that depends on radio and TV, don’t forget this is an election year. Many of the prime advertising spots will be more difficult to get or more expensive. Maybe it is time for you to consider putting a billboard in 260,000 homes by placing an ad inside REACH Magazine, Dayton’s favorite coupon magazine. More than one advertiser has discovered that REACH can provide significant impact for their business compared with TV and Radio. (I offer free call tracking phone numbers so you can compare REACH with other media over time ).

One last thought about the politics of this year. If you are busy now, but can handle more work, this is the time to do additional marketing. Politics has a tendency to mess things up for businesses for a time in the fall. If you can manage getting more estimates now and filling your pipeline with work to take your though the fall, I would encourage you to go for it. There will be a time (maybe several weeks or even up to a month) when consumers are “worried” about the election and they will not call you. There will be a time this fall when if they do call you, they may “hold off” on making a decision until they see what is going to happen. Don’t be caught off guard or be surprised, be ready. Build up your business now with work in the pipeline to take you through slow downs. If you are busy NOW, then now just might be the best time to INCREASE your advertising investments rather than cutting back. I’ve been in advertising for almost 25 years and every year there is someone who tells me they wish they would have advertised earlier and more when the getting was good even though they were “really busy”.

Here is a list of things that would be good in our summer REACH magazine issues:

• Spring clean-ups of all kinds / landscaping, windows, power washing of siding and decks

• House painting / repairs of all kinds (I have handyman ads and painter ads that work well, just need businesses that want to grow)

• Landscaping, paver patios, patio enclosures, retractable awnings, decks, etc.

• Auto maintenance and repair (family vacation time)

• Restaurants, open outdoor patio dining, light summer entre’s to enjoy (food is almost always a winner in REACH magazine)

• Carpet cleaning, tile cleaning, maid services etc.

• Summer programs for kids and families

• Driveway replacement – concrete, asphalt, paver

• Replacement windows

• Heating and Air services for before and during the hotter time of the year

• Plumbing services (I have example ads from our Indianapolis market that are kicking butt and I need to find a plumber that wants to grow in Dayton)

• Remodeling / kitchen, bath, room additions, garages and storage buildings

and more…

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You can refer to that original post to get the times and dates for the regular meetings. This is just a photo and update from Tuesday April 3rd. Chris Roderer spoke to the group and shared about their growth at Town and Country Shopping Center and about the significance of customer service. Of course everyone had a chance to share about what they do and to pass around business cards to everyone.

Here is the picture I took with my iPhone:

Although I have a hard time getting there at 8am, one nice thing is that I can order a nice breakfast.

Check the link above to email Ron (Email: ron.solada@edwardjones.com OR call Ron at 937-293-7473) if you would like to come. Although it is a one per category group, there is no fee to participate. We will just have to add another table next time if you come since the tables we had set up this time around were full.

Hope to see you there!

Peter DeMott • REACH Magazine • YoDEAL • Housetrends • ValPak and eREACH.com • 937-478-6222 • peter@photosbypdemott.com

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