NEWS YOU CAN USE by David Margolis, President, Syndicated Ad Features

As an advertiser, your credibility and reputation are largely tied to the status of the media in which you choose to make your appeal to the public. As a result, it pays to make your advertising choices thoughtfully. As a local professional and business person, where do you think your investment in time and advertising dollars will best be spent? According to one survey of over 1,100 users of Internet news sites, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they trust community news sites more than mainstream media. It seems that the pages of local weeklies and other community publications are the places to be if you want to be taken seriously.

Another significant benefit of concentrating your advertising in local newspapers is that it attracts the very people to whom you wish to speak. As a general matter, readers of local newspapers are better educated, have higher incomes and have more money to spend. All of these characteristics that retailers and service professionals find so desirable may be attributed to the notion that people in this demographic simply like to read. If so, our clients may take advantage of proper media positioning and readers' thirst for interesting and useful information by putting them in the right place and providing them with the content they believe they need to succeed.