Getting your foot in the door can be the hardest part of attracting new customers, particularly with once-upon-a-time niche items like vegetarian foods. However, with new business models sprouting up each day, more and more options are becoming available to get the word out.

According to a survey by investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott (JMS), 25% of consumers said they were spending less on food than they were one year ago, an increase of 15% from those saying this same thing just one month earlier.

According to consumers, the answer is yes — that is, depending on what the message is. A newly released joint survey by Harris Interactive and LinkedIn finds that some disparity exists in the perception of advertising effectiveness between advertisers and consumers and it examines the effectiveness of specific advertising types.

A new study of over 36,000 Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) panelists shows that coupons still attract a great deal of attention from American consumers, though different methods of distribution tend to attract different age groups. Older consumers tend to clip coupons from traditional print media such as newspapers, while younger consumers respond more to online media.