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Coffee News® PHX: the West Valley's free weekly good-news paper, 37 yearsShort answer: the best option depends on what you sell, who buys it, and how long you can stay in front of them. There are multiple forms of marketing, and how you get in front of your customers should depend on how they buy.
Now, I own Coffee News PHX, so I'm biased, but I'm far from delusional.
I've only owned it for a couple of months, so there's plenty I don't know. When I don't know something, I'll tell you. Fair?
Three owners have called me after spending thousands on Google and Meta ads. Some were barely washing out. Some were losing little amounts of money monthly.
The way they put it: "I can't figure them out."
They didn't quit Google, but all three moved part of that budget into all three of our editions.
Then there's a financial advisor who runs call tracking on his ad. I told you about him in my post on whether print still works. He runs in the larger, more traditional papers too, and he's happy with those. He tells me our results are right up there with them, and he's waiting on us to expand.
Digital is tough, inconsistent, and expensive. Print is working for the people who stick with it.
No delusions here, that's a sample size of 4. Told you I'd be honest, haha.
Repetition. In front of your ICP (Ideal Client Profile).
Few customers know the problems they have, or how bad they are.
Few people have money burning a hole in their pocket, looking through the ads and wondering what problems they could fix in their life today with these small businesses.
They just have to see you more. When the need shows up, you want to be the name they already know.
Print is a staple. Treat it with a 12-month frame of mind. A two-month run won't help you, and one week, God forbid, won't either.
Keep that in mind for everything below.
These can work. They have their place, and with the right sales process behind them, they can be powerful.
If you sell products you can ship anywhere, this is where your customers are. Start here. Make sure you have a proper sales funnel and a process to handle the leads and get to them with speed. Your chance of closing a lead goes up drastically when you respond in less than 5 minutes.
If you're a local service business, go in with your eyes open. The owners calling me weren't lazy, and they weren't dumb; they spent real money and weren't able to make the numbers work at a rate where they felt the solution was found.
I'll be straight with you. I don't know much about the Independent.
Here's what they publish themselves. They run 25+ newspapers and magazines with more than 575,000 papers mailed monthly, including weekly papers in Peoria, Surprise, Sun City and Sun City West. They also sell postcards, flyer inserts, email campaigns, digital billboards and streaming TV ads, so you can buy a lot from one company.
Rates aren't on their website. They build a custom plan, so you'd have to ask.
From what I understand, they let people run shorter and buy whatever fits their budget. That's a good and bad thing.
It's good because small businesses are still great businesses. I'm a big underdog guy, and I want to see those owners win.
It's bad because a short run doesn't give anyone the chance to see you enough.
If you truly only have $40 to $60 a month, a week in the Independent is better than nothing, and they're a better fit for you than I am. It's close to throwing your money away. That's not a knock on their paper. It's what happens when anyone runs an ad one week a month. So have a strategy around that ad run to try and leverage your business into some ROI.
I don't have experience with these, and I've never used a Valpak.
I've used a mailed coupon exactly once. My tooth had cracked just days before it showed up, and it was a coupon from a dentist for an opinion on what needed to happen.
Great timing for her. Terrible timing for my tooth.
That's the trouble with mail. It has to land in the exact week someone needs you.
When coupons come grouped together, the value of each one goes down. Even if there's a killer deal in there for something you really need, people start to wonder: why such a great discount? We all have fairness built into us, and when something feels off, it turns people away.
Here's where mailers beat a weekly paper: when there's a clear reason for the sale. Black Friday. Christmas. New Year's. People get why it's on sale.
Sending coupons with no clear reason doesn't land well. If you're a technician, meaning you're good at the thing your business does, you started the company because you're good at it, not because you love marketing. You value your work, so 20% off your already fair price feels like a great deal to you. The person opening the mail doesn't know everything you do. To them, it's just another coupon.
If you want to price it out, ask Valpak and Money Mailer for a quote, since neither one publishes rates. For your own postcards, the Post Office's Every Door Direct Mail runs about 25 cents a piece in postage, before you print anything. Check the current rate first.
Neighbors of Sun City West is a monthly magazine that's delivered to residents and features local families. I haven't used it, so I won't pretend to have an opinion on the results.
What I can compare is the math. A monthly gets you 12 chances a year. A weekly gets you 52. If people need to see you again and again, that's a differentiator.
Here's where we shine: building trust within the community, and blocking out your competition.
Each category is exclusive in your edition, so a reader comparing plumbers in our paper finds one plumber.
Ads start at $195 a month, which works out to about $45 a week. As far as I know, that's comparable to a weekly rate elsewhere. The difference is that we require a commitment.
I'd rather your business actually grow from our partnership than make an extra $50 a month running your ad for one week. I do have a 6-month run, but I really advise against it. I want you on for the year.
Here's our downside. We're picked up at 91 spots around the West Valley, like diners, cafés and waiting rooms. We don't land in every mailbox. If you need every home in one neighborhood this month, we aren't that.
If that's you, I'd look at digital, email, direct outreach and networking groups. Find out where those owners are buying, and get around those networks.
Say a friend just opened a service business in Surprise. Here's what I'd tell them. It covers the first 8 months, and you shouldn't spend all of it every month.
Month 1
Month 2
Months 3 to 8
Even after paying for the AI membership, that's about $1,700 saved by month 8.
After that, it depends on the goals of the business and on the owner.
If you sell products you can ship anywhere, or you sell to other businesses, start with digital. You've got to figure it out, or spend $1,000 to $6,000 on an agency to spend $1,000 to $6,000 in ads.
If you've got a real reason for a sale, send a mailer. Spend a little extra to have a third-party copywriter look over the mailer too. It's worth it.
If you truly only have $40 to $60 a month, call the Independent.
If you're a local service business, your customers are West Valley homeowners, and you can commit to a full year, that's what we're built for.
Whichever one you pick, pick one you can stick with. Just remember people have to see you more than once. They need to see you 9+ times, so budget for how to make that happen.
You need to get seen and have that passive source of visibility.
Or
You need to get out and start selling, which is a conversation for a different day.
