An editorial by Gary Nager
An editorial by Gary Nager

One of the things I hear all too often these days — especially from people who have never advertised in the New Tampa or Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News — is that advertising in local print media “just doesn’t work anymore because of the internet.”

To all of those folks, all I can say is, “Yeah, right.”

First of all, I’m not naive. I know that more of our advertisers get far greater results from having business feature articles written about their businesses than they do from any ad in any print or online medium. Sadly, because of the number of advertisers we have (150-200 in every issue) and with a space limit of only four or five business profiles that can run in any issue, those features can only run in the print version of this publication once a year — although those article and issue archives also are always available at NTNeighborhoodNews.com.

The point is that between our two publications each month, we only run about 100 business profiles in print per year, which still doesn’t cover the total number of advertisers we have, so that space is very precious to us. We hear all the time — from so many of the businesses that have had features written — just how much business those stories can and do generate.

Here’s an incredible case in point. Last year, we wrote an article about American Wood Flooring (AWF) in the SuperTarget-anchored Northwood Shopping Plaza located just north of County Line Rd. on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., and AWF owner Andy Dunning said that he not only got a tremendous response and plenty of orders, he also sold his largest-ever single-customer job of more than $30,000 in flooring thanks solely to that article.

In other words, Andy was thrilled with the results and made sure he continued to advertise all year long in either our New Tampa or Wesley Chapel editions each month (and in both issues each month several times), because he wanted to make sure that he kept his business in line for another feature this year.

Well, that article ran for the first time this year in our New Tampa issue and, even though AWF is located in Wesley Chape — and despite the fact that the issue hit its 24,000+ mailboxes in zip code 33647 the Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend — Andy said the phone started ringing Friday afternoon, rang all weekend long and less than a week after the story came out, he already had set his one-week record for his store of more than $40,000 in orders!

“And the phone calls are still coming and people are still stopping in to see what we have. All thanks entirely to the story in the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News!”

Andy also says that even though just his ad running in either publication alone doesn’t generate the same type of response as the stories, “It’s so worth it to advertise all year long because it keeps you in line to get the story each year as soon as possible. And, we do sell jobs just based on the ad alone, too. There’s really been nothing else like it for this store. If you can only afford to advertise in one local publication and you’re in or trying to sell to New Tampa or Wesley Chapel, this is the place to spend your money.”

And of course, we have helped many other local businesses the last 20 years and the restaurants who advertise with us regularly and therefore have received full-length dining reviews from us, tell us that there is no doubt that more people in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel read the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News — and respond to those reviews by visiting the eateries — than any other print, broadcast or online medium.

For more information about advertising in the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News, call GM Nikki Bennett at 910-2575. For American Wood Flooring (1285 BBD Blvd.), call 991-7999.

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