Newspaper Inserting video

Have you ever opened the newspaper and ended up with flyers and things fall out of it on to the floor?  (Made you look, didn't they)

Advertising by putting inserts into a newspaper has been a very popular method of advertising for many years.  In fact, at

 one time while folks were pulling back on actual ads in the newspaper, insert advertising was growing by leaps and bounds. 

Advantages to this type of advertising are numerous.  The subscriber gets a stand alone piece they can hang on to and refer back to - especially if you are promoting multiple items on sale.  The insert automatically makes people see it, simply because they need to keep them from falling out.  The message is all yours - you don't have limited space to communicate, you can make the insert as many pages as you choose.  You can be creative with size, color and attention grabbing graphics.


Disadvantages can be it is much more work for you as an advertiser.  You typically need to find someone to create this insert - most are not built by the newspaper although they could be.  It can take a very long time to create the artwork and copy, send to a printer, then have the printer ship the inserts to the newspapers you want it inserted in to.  You may need to plan your sale more than a month in advance and can't change any price points up to 3 weeks before the promotion starts.  It is expensive.  You pay for design, printing, shipping and inserting.  It is typically much cheaper to buy a full page ad in the newspaper than it is to print enough copies to insert into that same paper.  You also normally get a discount for placing the same ad multiple times - an insert is not that way.

Because it is such a popular and productive way to advertise, newspapers have machines to make the process of putting inserts in a publication much quicker and easier.  If you have 10 inserts and 1,000 copies of your paper in circulation, that is 10,000 pieces to put together! 

The Pueblo Chieftain has 2 high speed inserting machines that are computerized to keep track of the inserts being put in.  Occasionally an insert doesn't feed correctly - the computer senses a missed insertion and since the machines are round like a carousel, that particular newspaper isn't dropped into the stream of finished papers.  it rides around the machine up to 4 times trying to get the correct insert in.  If it fails a 5th time the machine stops and lets the operator fix it manually. 



The 2 round inserters can put 12 inserts into a paper at one pass.  We use both machines to get the Pueblo Chieftain out on the street quicker than we could with only one. 

The inserting machines feed papers on to a conveyor that take the newspapers to a stacking machine.  The stacker produces bundles of newspapers that are then straightened up by people and stacked on a skid, or sent out the door to be delivered.

If you operate a newspaper you should consider offering inserts - it can add to those difficult to find advertising dollars.