Reaching the working world through community newspapers

Recruiters spend vast amounts of money placing 'wanted ads' in various daily and weekly newspapers throughout the country - often attracting less than perfect candidates. The massive influx of applications results in hours of filtering through suitable CVs before the interviewing process can begin.

Bowles believes making use of community newspapers ensures that the correct candidates reach the recruitment agency. "According to our ROOTS 2004 study, 74% of all purchase decision makers (PDMs) read a community newspaper every week. In every one of the 58 researched areas, community newspapers had the highest reach of all PDMs when compared to other print media options.
In comparison, only 31% of any daily and 46% of any weekly newspaper is read throughout South Africa.

The national news beat brings with it a lot of fragmentation, explains Bowles, with many media types focusing on the same information, allowing readers to access it from many sources.

"Yet there is always room in the home for the community paper, because it alone delivers the news pertinent to their personal lives in the community. That makes the environment very unique and attractive to advertisers. Recruitment advertisers can take advantage of that environment as well having the ability to target better - geographically, psychographically or demographically."

For recruitment advertisers, getting to the big numbers (prospects) is crucial for response. In Gauteng, community newspapers have a combined circulation of 1.5 million (ABC/VFD July - December 2005), followed by Daily Sun (266 653), Sunday Times (249 583) and The Star (159 302).

"Community newspapers are well-entrenched in the lives of readers and have superior reach across the country - close to 4 million copies are distributed every week. The medium offers readers unique and relevant content and in many cases, has the advantage of being read at home," concludes Bowles.