A Guide To Advertising In The Media
James Calvin
The media is a powerful thing -- the average person spends an
enormous amount of their life consuming it in one form or
another, and will spend a significant percentage of that time
looking at, listening to or watching advertisements. If you
want to use the power of the media, though, you need to know
what you're doing.
Advertising in Newspapers and Magazines.
There are two kinds of advertising you can get in newspapers
and magazines: classified and display. Classifieds are the
small ads towards the back of the publication, while display
ads can be almost any size, from a small corner of a page to a
massive double-page spread.
If there's a publication you're interested in advertising in,
either go to its website (the rate card section) or call its
advertising department to find out the rates it charges. Now
pick your jaw up off the floor. Yes, advertising in the print
media really is that expensive, and for most home businesses it
probably just won't be that economical.
There is, however, an exception: niche and trade magazines. If
you've ever looked around in a newsagent, you will have seen
just how many magazines there are out there, filling every
conceivable gap in the market. You need to find the magazine
that people who are interested in your services might read. For
example, if you're a wedding photographer, look for a magazine
called 'Your Wedding', 'Bride', or something similar.
Advertising in these magazines will be far cheaper than placing
an ad in a general-audience publication, and far more likely to
actually get some responses.
Advertising on the Radio.
Wherever you are, the chances are that there's a local radio
station. Once your home business grows to a decent size, you
might consider buying some time on it.
Really, though, the only kind of home business that can benefit
enough from radio ads to justify the cost is one that does
anything to do with cars. Since radio is almost entirely
limited to use as in-car entertainment now, you know that
almost everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner, and so
might be interested in what you're offering. If you offer
something that people need cheaply or even for free, you can
get a big response.
Unfortunately, that response could be a little too big --
thanks to the time-sensitivity of radio, you'll get mobbed the
next day, and then everyone will forget you again. Radio
advertising offers the listener no opportunity to keep your ad
and refer to it later, or to find it again in the future. You
will find that any ads involving a phone number are
spectacularly useless.
Advertising on the Television.
Unless your business is getting pretty big, this would be quite
a bad idea. You'd have trouble producing and airing an ad even
on local cable channels for less than $10,000. Of course, if
there's a market for your product and you've got the budget for
this, you could take a gamble and make a mint. The home
businesses that tend to do best out of TV ads are ones that
have a 'unique and useful invention' product with
easy-to-demonstrate benefits -- think infomercial. Research
shows that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a
free phone number and a price point of $19.95.
Advertising on Billboards.
Here's one that gets overlooked pretty often, but can be very
effective if you do it right. Billboard ads are relatively
expensive, but they do generally stay up for a long time, and
they can be very specifically targeted to an area -- the one
where they're physically located. You'll have the best results
with this if you can put one near enough to your business that
it could say 'turn left at the next junction', or something
like that. Phone numbers are, again, pretty useless, although
you could have some luck putting a website address up there.
Advertising at the Movies.
Finally, here's one that often gets overlooked. If you turn up
to the cinema early, you might have seen that before the
big-budget ads, ads for local businesses are run. This can be a
great place to advertise relatively inexpensively in quite a
high-profile way, and it works especially well for takeaway
food businesses.
About The Author: James Calvin will show you how to market your
product to the World using the only REAL techniques that make
the Internet pay off. Go to
http://www.MillionaireMarketingManual.com NOW. You may freely
distribute or publish the above article as long as this bio and
an active hyperlink are accompanied with it.
<<--------- End of Free Reprint Article --------->>
Find More Free Articles
See Also:
All Free Articles About Advertising
All Free Articles About Marketing
Index of All Free Reprint Articles
