Personals and Classified Ads, From a Newsagent's Window in Mortlake to the World Wide Web
One of the most endearing featuress of the Internet is the way in which it has altered our whole outlook on the area of wirk that is commercial advertising.
Some time ago my wife and I managed a business that involved distributing copious quantities of printed flyers to dwellings on a door-to-door basis on behalf of various restaurants, mechanics, self-styled nutritionists and mini cab companies.
Whilst even back then most residents failed to fully appreciate the benefit to them of the unannounced arrival of piles flyers, cards and letters, the thinking behind it was simple enough. Out of every thousand or so doors we happened upon a hundred leaflets would be seen, even if momentarily en route to the waste paper basket (there was no recycling in those days), aout twenty would be read and one or two would result in business for the advertiser. This was sufficient to render the advertiser's efforts worthwhile after having covered the cost of having the leaflets printed and delivered.
A similar principle applied to the publication of adverts in the local paper. Most readers would simply pass the ad by, no matter how prominent it may have been, but the small number who read and heeded the message would make its insertion a profitable exercise notwithstanding the sometimes substantial cost of having it published.
One could argue that the placing of hand-written postcards in shop windows operated on an completely different principle. Although in quantity terms the audience that was reached was much smaller than was the case either with door-to-door leaflet dropping or with newspaper advertising, they were there for the benefit of those who actually stopped to read them. Thus there was no "nuisance factor", and the percentage of what we would today call "conversions" was therefore substantially higher.
Advertising on the web of course is a different game entirely. Whilst some ads in online directories are free and others come at a price, what they all do have in common is that they can be seen by anyone in the world who clicks the links. The corner shop now sits along the global super highway rather than at the junction of some residential back street in Mortlake.
It was when I was scanning the classified ads board in the window of a shop in SW London recently that I found myself wondering whether it would be possible to somehow blend the intimacy of the traditional cards in the window style of advertising with the global efficiency of the Internet.
An unobtrusive little newsagent's shop that occupies every corner of the world.
It is an intriguing thought, but could it be one that is closer to being realised than some us may of us may have imagined?
About the Author:
Mark Richards is a professional writer working for The Middle Man, a web-based business marketing agency. He also publishes A Blog About SEO.