How long is your commute to work every day? 1 hour? 2 hours? By the looks of the interstate during rush hour, you may very well be in your personal car during your commute. A 2009 study by Arbitron research found that the average commuter spends nearly 3 hours in their cars every day with a total of almost 19 hours every week. This is up from 15 hours a week reported from this same study back in 2003.

Nineteen hours a week is a significant portion of your valuable time being trapped in one place. So what do you usually do to pass the time? 93 percent of the participants researched in this Arbitron study listen to the AM or FM radio at least 5 minutes or more during an average week, and more than 81 percent of them will continue to listen to the AM/FM radio just as much as they do now despite growing technologies like satellite radio and mp3 players.

With 89 percent of people in the United States aged 18 or older driving in some kind of private vehicle in the past month, it’s clear that vehicles are a huge part of American’s lives. Another trend amongst Americans is stopping at a store on the way home from work in the evening. 82 percent of Americans have reported stopping at a grocery store on the way home from work in the past month, and 58 percent report stopping at a convenience store. Also, 63 percent reported going to a large retail store, like Target or Best Buy. Sometimes these trips are planned, of course, but sometimes they are “impulse stops”. This gives advertisers the perfect opportunity to utilize out-of-home advertising like billboards and radio. When these customers stop on the way home, the radio or a billboard is likely to be the last thing they see or hear before entering the store.

Travelers are, in fact, noticing billboards. 71 percent of people studied noticed advertising messages on roadside billboards sometimes, most of the time, or each time they pass one. 58 percent of respondents learned about a restaurant from a billboard that they later visited. Not only are travelers taking notice of roadside billboards, they are also being influenced by them; great news for advertisers. This medium is still extremely effective.

So what does this all mean? Americans are spending more and more time sitting in their cars commuting a long distance to work or just sitting in traffic. Despite growing in-car technologies, the AM/FM radio is still a popular entertainment source for the majority of Americans. Combine this information with the confirmation that billboards are still doing their job, and you have a promising opportunity to expand on your marketing efforts.

In your household, is there one person who gets the mail on a daily basis? Is it the first person home from work? Or, is it the “woman of the house?”

According to research from Melissa Data, women sorted through the mail in three-fourths of the U.S. households studied. Furthermore, of these women who received the mail, 95 percent of them chose which advertising materials to keep while 93 percent clipped the coupons.

Another study by Vertis Communications in 2007 found that a whopping 85 percent of women ages 25-44 regularly read printed direct mail marketing pieces. Also an interesting tidbit: 57 percent of women and 62 percent of men prefer to receive direct mailers that are personalized to them.

So if more women are getting the mail than men on a daily basis, and 85 percent of those women are reading the direct mailers that they receive, wouldn’t you say that this is a perfect opportunity for direct mail advertisers to gear their messages towards women? After all, targeting women with direct mail media could trigger a higher response rate and increase ROI for a given business’s direct mail campaigns.

And while these sources affirm that targeting to women could maximize ROI on direct mail campaigns, these studies are catered to varying demographics and could fluctuate based on geographical location. However, the results of the studies certainly show that it is something to keep in mind when creating your direct mail pieces.

Still in Doubt? Personalize it Out.

If you really want to appeal to your targets, it’s always a great idea to personalize your direct mail pieces. Regardless of who gets the mail in your household, the personalization factor, quality of the content and ability to catch your consumers’ eyes will get the most responses to your direct mail efforts.

2008 served as the “year of the plunge” for many different components of the advertising world, but the “plunge of all plunges” was in the newspaper medium. The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) released some figures on overall domestic print revenue for the 2008 year, and let’s just say that things aren’t looking too pretty.

Overall ad revenue has dropped for the third consecutive year, while sales plummeted approximately 23%. Real estate and automotive decreased a respective 37.8% and 29.1% as a result of both struggling industries. But the “drop of all drops” was in help-wanted ad revenue, which decreased an astronomical 42.5% solely within the 2008 year.

Though online ad revenue withstood the whirlwind at only a 1.8% decline, this is still considered a huge hit to the newspaper medium, considering that previous years indicated double-digit revenue increases.

So now that the disastrous year of 2008 has come and gone, what’s to come for the remainder of 2009?

A Deloitte study says that the newspaper medium’s outlook has gone from “difficult” to “impossible,” so don’t expect any major revelations in the industry to occur anytime soon.

Amidst all the fretting and nail-biting among magazine editors that are worried about the future of their industry, along comes Esquire with its first digital cover. Hailed as a revolutionary move for the magazine industry, the cover was released in September 2008 as part of the magazine’s 75th year of publication, using a firm called E Ink to serve as their vendor.

But has Esquire’s investment paid off? And more importantly, what does this mean for the rest of the magazine industry?

As Mac Slocum over at Tools of Change for Publishing states, “Future E Ink screens are projected to be ultra-light, interactive and updateable via Web connections. But millions of consumers already own mobile devices with the same functionality.”

And while the idea of merging digital elements with an analog medium is a worthy idea to explore, there’s still something to be said for adaptability within a medium, just as TV, film and radio had to adapt to the digital age. Simply tacking on a technological novelty item won’t be the panacea the magazine industry is looking for.

However, in light of the magazine juggernauts either adapting to new technology or freezing in terror, it seems the burgeoning niche magazines are holding steady. It comes as no surprise, considering these small-time publications have low corporate overhead and pay special attention to their core market, rather than relying on the pockets of advertisers.

A good example of this is EnlightenNext, a spirituality magazine that started as a newsletter in 1992 that currently has a paid circulation of approximately 25,000. They attribute their success to a wide and loyal audience-base, as opposed to counting on advertisers for revenue. This works to their advantage, as ad print in traditional media is on a serious decline.

But can the “big-time” publications adopt an independent approach? From what it seems, some big-time publishers are reluctant to embrace the independent path and would rather focus their energy on merging digital and analog, as displayed be the E Ink cover.

However, both paths could be worth venturing into. The digital analog merger shows promise of being integrated in a much larger and innovative format, while the independent niche market pathway displays profitability and sustainability by catering to a loyal base with a decreased overhead cost.

If these two ideas could somehow combine themselves into a profitable business format, then perhaps it can help revive the suffering magazine industry.

Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times, stopped in at NYU the other week to talk about the strength of print journalism. She seemed optimistic about the future of her industry, saying, “Call newspapers dinosaurs if you like, but remember that dinosaurs roamed the Earth for millions of years.”

And while that’s a valid point, the dinosaurs had their day to roam the earth. But now, they’re extinct.

As it stands, newspapers across the country are scaling back production. Local papers are reducing service from five days a week to three, and the majority of papers are cutting down on jobs. So where are advertisers going now that newspapers are scaling back?

Medium components that indicated increasing ad revenue in the first quarter of 2006 were as follows: the Internet, up 16.7%; direct mail, up 4.5 %; magazines, up 4.1%; the yellow pages, up 2%; and cable TV networks, up 1.4%.” Notably absent from that list? Newspapers.

If the Internet was the future in 2006, then how is that panning out in today’s media market?

Pretty well, apparently. Autotrader.com announced that it received record traffic in March 2009 at approximately16 million unique hits, as opposed to the 14 million unique hits it received in February of 2009. The numbers make sense; people are turning to the Internet for information and news, and advertisers are capitalizing on this.

Digital media is another advertising medium that is on the rise. Search terms, which bolster the number of times a particular brand is shown in search results, were predicted to experience a growth of $1.7 billion in 2008.

Social networking, while already popular among the younger demographic, is experiencing a surge of popularity from businesses who realize its potential to reach out to customers via sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Mobile media is also incorporating these digital elements into a more personal branding experience, as more and more phones are becoming Internet capable. In terms of numbers, mobile media experienced a 30% jump in unique personal Internet users throughout the course of 2008.

These trends strongly suggest that new mediums are evolving, while the “newspaper dinosaur” is becoming increasingly more obsolete.

2008 served as the explosion of a new digital marketing era that is becoming increasingly more prominent as the months progress. And while the digital era provides marketing techniques that can really maximize your firm’s ROI, traditional media still serves as a foolproof method of targeting local consumers.

So which traditional media types could still work for the local business realm? For starters, here are a few:

Newspaper Coupons

While true that the newspaper medium is on a rapid decline, it’s not dead in the water yet. Because newspaper advertising is relatively cheap, especially in this economy, using coupon ads in your area’s local paper can be a great way to reach customers and generate traffic into your store.

Cable TV

If running newspaper coupons isn’t your cup of tea, cable advertising also has its perks. Cable advertising is a cost-effective method of TV advertising that allows you the flexibility of zeroing in on any specific target audience within your area. Many local advertising stations will also create your ad for free or at a fairly small cost.

Yellow Pages

A study by Forrester Research finds that for 74 percent of offline consumers and 66% of online consumers, Yellow Pages directories are a preferred choice for customers that seek specific products and services.

Door Hangers

An often-forgotten form of print media is the door hanger. Door hangers are incredibly cheap and can serve as a great way to get your business’s name out to the community to drive locals into your store. Members of a community are enthusiastic about helping out the local businesses in their community, so distributing door hangers to homes in your area can be a good way to inform locals about your business.

Websites

Designing a user-friendly website is another great way for consumers to find out more information about your business and drive more consumers to your store, especially since approximately 74.4 percent of North Americans are connected to the Internet. Customers rely on your website for additional information and to learn about your business before visiting your store.