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Don’t Dismiss Your Hometown Paper

April 5, 2013 By Jennifer Derrick 2 Comments

I live in a rural community and we get three newspapers here. The first is our main, statewide paper. Though it’s a daily paper, I only subscribe to the Sunday edition of that one for the coupons and sales flyers. However, we also get two other small-town papers each week. We don’t pay for these and never asked to be added to the mailing list; they are simply sent through the Postal Service to everyone who lives in the township (we get two because we live in the doughnut hole between two towns so the publishers send us both).

I used to dismiss these as junk mail and tossed them straight into the recycling bin. I used to refer to them as, “the crap papers.” Then one day I actually sat down and flipped through one of the papers. While it certainly wasn’t a hotbed of journalism (and it badly needed an editor), I did find that there was more of value in there than I’d thought. Here are a few things I found:

Coupons

No, it didn’t have the large piles of coupons that typically come in the Sunday papers, but there were a few in there for local businesses. Most weren’t even in an insert, they were just paid ads placed throughout the paper that you could clip and bring in for things like free meals, BOGO’s, and free product trials. These are the kinds of coupons you can’t find online or in the bigger, statewide papers because the small businesses aren’t advertising there.

Community Events

I personally don’t keep up with every local business or community organization online. I can’t. There are just too many and many here don’t even have an online presence, or if they do it’s just a placeholder that’s never updated. However, the paper has a section for community events that lists the free and low cost events that are happening around town. There were even organizations in there that that I’d never heard of and which I’ve since become very interested in supporting.

Special Offers/Giveaways

In addition to coupons, several businesses put out special offers, or piggyback on a larger town event and include offers to match. For example, the local high school baseball coach just retired after forty years. To celebrate, the paper put together an insert chronicling his career and many local businesses bought ads in that insert. Many of the ads had special offers such as free meals or products if you came in on the last day of the coaches’ tenure. There was another one once where several of the businesses that bordered the block where the local craft fair was being held were offering freebies if you stopped in during the fair. There are always things like this in these papers but you don’t know it unless you read it.

Local News

Like I said, this paper isn’t the New York Times when it comes to covering major events. However, I do find stories in there that the larger papers don’t pick up but which have the potential to impact us financially. One of these papers was the first place I learned about cuts to our library system, as well as a potential new road that would have cut close to our property and lowered our property value. Knowing about those proposals allowed the community to protest and make sure that our elected officials understood the impacts of these ideas on us. We won both, keeping the library open and defeating the road.

Grocery Flyers

Since I only get the Sunday paper, I don’t get the grocery flyers that come in the mid-week edition of the statewide paper. However, both local papers carry the flyers and each has some different ones, unique to the stores in each town. I understand from people who do get the main paper that not all of the stores put their flyers in there, anyway, and that the smaller stores only advertise in the local papers. The smaller stores don’t even put their flyers online. If you want to know what’s on sale or get the coupons and offers, you have to read the local papers.

Notices of New Businesses Opening

These papers are the place where I find out which new businesses are coming to town. It’s useful to know, for example, that a new grocery store or gas station is coming because it means more competition. There may also be freebies and special offers associated with the grand opening. It may also mean the addition of a new local business that deserves my support instead of buying from a mega chain store.

Local Sales

Yes, there are websites like Craigslist and eBay and all kinds of online sites to post merchandise for sale, yard sales, and used car sales. However, I live in a very rural community and many, many people here are not Internet savvy. (High speed Internet is hard to get and expensive, too, which limits what gets posted online.) As a result, these local papers are still the best places to go for yard sale listings, used cars for sale, notices of estate sales, and the like.

So don’t dismiss your local paper if you have one. It may be small and short on news, but there are other reasons you might want to at least glance through it. We’d all like to think that everything is online, but the reality is that in many places, particularly small towns, much of it is not and the local paper is still the best resource for finding out what’s going on.

If you live in an area that has a small local paper and you don’t receive one automatically, you might want to see if there is a way to get signed up. Likely the subscription will be free or a very nominal amount when compared to subscribing to a big, daily paper.

(Photo courtesy of Matt Callow)

Ten Benefits of Memberships and Season Passes

November 7, 2011 By Jennifer Derrick 2 Comments

Do you have a museum, zoo, or theme park nearby that you find yourself visiting more than once per year? If you do, you might want to look into the costs and benefits of buying a season pass or becoming a member. I was surprised recently to discover that a year long membership at my local zoo cost just five dollars more than the price of a one-day ticket. If I visit that zoo twice in a year, I’ve saved money. Actually, I could probably save money with just one visit because the membership offers discounts on food and merchandise.

At first glance it may seem like overkill to buy a pass or membership for just a few visits. But if you look closely you’ll probably discover that the pass is the better value, particularly if you’ll visit more than once in a year or season. The benefits of becoming a member or buying a season pass vary, but here are some common benefits.

Admission becomes free after a certain point: This is the main benefit and the one you should most closely consider when thinking of buying a pass or membership. Sometimes it takes as little as two visits for the pass to pay for itself and sometimes it takes a few more. Crunch the numbers and ask yourself if you will visit that many times in a year or season. If the answer is yes, go for the pass.

Discounts on additional admissions: Some memberships allow you to bring a specified number of guests along with you and they will get in either for free or at a discounted rate. This is helpful if you frequently have out of town guests or if your kids want to bring their friends along.

Discounts on food and merchandise: Most memberships give you discounts on food and merchandise bought in specific locations. You may also get access to special member-themed merchandise like pins or t-shirts.

Discounted or free admission (and priority registration) to special programs: Many museums and theme parks have special exhibitions, kid’s programs, holiday themed events, camps, classes, and other special events. Members and pass holders generally get discounted or free admission to these programs and may even get first crack at reservations for limited-space opportunities.

Free or discounted admission to other attractions: Many museums and zoos have reciprocal agreements with other museums and zoos around the country or around the world. This means that if you show your pass at a participating venue, you will likely get in for free or at a greatly reduced price. This benefit really comes in handy when you’re looking for something to do while on vacation, but there might be other participating venues in your own city.

Special offers from other partners: Many museums and parks partner with other companies in the area. You might get discounts at other restaurants, parks, attractions, museums, or shops through their partnerships with your “home” attraction.

Access to special venues: Some museums and zoos have special rooms or picnic areas that can be rented for parties. Members often get first choice of dates and reduced rental rates. If you’re planning something like a wedding, birthday party, or family reunion, this can be a valuable benefit.

Free or discounted parking: In theme parks and zoos, parking can easily be over ten dollars per car. Museums that are in cities may require you to park in paid parking decks. Those with memberships and passes, however, often get to park for free or at reduced cost.

Other freebies: Members and pass holders may get things like magazines, calendars, newsletters, t-shirts, tote bags, or DVD’s for free. While the value of these things might be negligible, they can tack on a little more value to a membership or pass.

Access to special collections or research facilities: Members of various institutions may be granted access to collections, libraries, or other resources that are not available to the general public. This can be useful if you have a deep interest in the subject or a child who might want to do a project on the subject.

One final “icing on the cake” benefit of many museum and zoo memberships is that a portion of the purchase price might be tax deductible since many of these institutions are non-profit, charitable institutions. Since tax laws are complicated and the amount, if any, that you can deduct varies, be sure to check with the facility for exact details. They should be able to provide you with the information you need.

As with anything, do your research before you commit to a membership or season pass. Know exactly what’s included and what comes at an extra charge. Make sure you can get your money out of the pass before you buy. Once you have the pass, don’t toss it in a drawer and forget about it. A pass is only a great deal if you use it. If you use it wisely, though, you can get a year or season’s worth of entertainment for a bargain price.

Photo courtesy of Andrew 94

Why Targeted Marketing Often Backfires — and How You Can Win the Game

February 28, 2011 By Jennifer Derrick 2 Comments

You’ve probably seen targeted marketing in action. When you receive a coupon in your email because you subscribe to a company’s newsletter, or when you get a discount code from your favorite resort, you’re seeing targeted marketing. Targeted marketing extends discounts and special offers to customers based on their prior history with a company or some other qualifying tidbit such as living in a certain zip code or working in a certain profession.

Targeted marketing has become rampant. This past Christmas season, Best Buy gave some of its Reward Zone Members $20 or $10 in reward certificates based on their prior purchasing history. Some members received nothing. Some resorts give discounts to prior customers, but some give the discounts to frequent customers and others give the discounts to those who only visited once. Amazon and some other e-tailers have long been suspected of offering different prices to different customers based on prior purchasing history. The list goes on and on.

Targeted marketing is popular with retailers because they believe that the surest way to increase profits is to make offers to certain customers. Their studies and statistics show that infrequent customers can be lured back with a discount, or that frequent customers shop more often when offered promotions. It’s incredibly easy for retailers to do this kind of marketing these days. Since everything you do is tracked in a computer somewhere, they can tell who is spending and who is not. They can see which zip codes need a boost in spending. They can see who is likely to buy things at full price and who will only buy at a sale price. Marketers love to disseminate all this data and then decide who should receive certain offers.

The thing is, as easy as it is for marketers to do this, it is equally easy for customers to figure it out. This is where the problem comes in and why targeted marketing often backfires. How many times have you seen a post on the Internet from someone gushing about the great deal they got at XYZ retailer or hotel? You then wonder why you didn’t get that offer. Turns out, it was offered only to certain people and you weren’t one of them. In the day of the Internet it is very easy to see who is getting what and to be frustrated and angry that you are left out of the good deals.

Back at Christmas there were pages and pages of angry posts from people who missed out on the Best Buy Reward Zone program. People couldn’t understand why some customers got the free money and others didn’t, particularly since it seemed the higher amounts went to infrequent shoppers. Customers who spent a lot at Best Buy were miffed that their loyalty went unrecognized. Many of them were angry and swore they’d never shop at Best Buy again. Best Buy may have boosted their holiday sales with that promotion, but how many long time customers did they alienate? Best Buy isn’t alone. I’ve seen people angry at Disney World, hotel chains, Amazon.com, airlines, and many other retailers over their targeted marketing practices. Marketers have to ask themselves if they make enough money off of these promotions to offset the angry customers they might lose. I guess they do, because targeted marketing continues.

There’s nothing illegal about targeted marketing. As long as a company isn’t excluding people based on race, religion or other protected statuses, they can do what they want. Is it fair? Not really, but companies aren’t concerned about fairness. They’re only concerned about profits.

As a customer is there anything you can do if you don’t receive the best targeted marketing offer? Sure there is. Call or email the company directly and ask them to give you the promotion. Be polite, but let them know that you are unhappy to have been left out. Let them know how you know about the offer (saw it on the Internet, heard from family, etc.) and ask them to extend the offer to you. Tell them that you were thinking of buying “Item X’ from them and that the discount would really help.

If they refuse, you can let them know that you will be taking your business elsewhere. Let them know that you don’t approve of such marketing gamesmanship and that you will go to another retailer that is offering a better deal. Many companies will extend the offer to you in order to keep you a happy customer. If they refuse to extend the offer to you, you can use the power of the Internet to post your experience and let others know of your negative experience.

Targeted marketing isn’t a bad idea, but in this day and age when everyone knows what everyone else is getting, it is likely to backfire and simply anger a good number of customers who feel slighted. If you operate a business, weigh the positives of targeted marketing against the negatives. It might not be a bad idea to try to find a fairer promotional system for your customers. If you’re a customer, don’t hesitate to let a company know that you don’t approve of their tactics and that you demand parity in pricing. You just might get what you want.