You may not realise it but when you place an advert in any newspaper or magazine – you could save yourself up to 75% – that’s right – you could reduce your advertising costs by 75%.
To achieve these amazing savings you just have to understand how the world of advertising works – then you can go and seek out cheap advertising deals.
And just imagine what a 75% reduction on your cost of advertising would do – for most companies it’s the different between normal profits and MEGA profits.
By following a few simple rules you will be amazed at just how much money you can save.
The first thing you need to do is contact the newspaper or magazine you are interested in advertising in.
Ask to speak to the advertising sales department – then once you’re speaking to one of their sales persons – request that they send you a media pack.
A media pack contains a recent copy of a publishers newspaper or magazine, together with information sheets about circulation, demographics, etc. This is designed to give you a good impression of the publication so that you feel it is the best place for you to advertise.
Also enclosed inside a media pack is a rate card.
A rate card is a price list of how much the publisher wants to charge you for placing an advert in their publication. The prices vary depending on size, location of your advert within the publication. Extra charges may also apply if you want your advert in colour.
Prices rise if you want a bigger advert in a prime location. The smaller your advert is – the lower the cost.
But what you must appreciate is that the prices being asked by the publisher are “not set in stone”. They are highly negotiable.
You must learn never pay rate card prices.
If you do pay rate card prices, you’ll be throwing money away and only helping to boost the commission payments of the advertising sales person you have been chatting with. Rate card prices are a starting price – the final price you pay for advertising can be a million miles away.
The next step is to learn about the advertising sales person you have been dealing with.
There are some common factors you need to understand about advertising sales people that will help you to buy cheap advertising:
1. They are employed on a low basic salary.
2. They are generally aged between 18 and 25.
3. They boost their low basic salary by selling advertising space and earning commission.
4. They always have a deadline by which time they must fill their publication with as many sold adverts as possible.
By being aware of these facts you can use your position as a buyer to drive down the cost you pay for advertising.
Before you book any adverts you need to learn the two different methods of booking cheap advertising, these are:
Series discounts AND last minute discounts
So what are series discounts?
A series discount is the discount you receive by agreeing to book multiple adverts – in a publication for several issues.
Here is an example:
If you book one advert in a monthly magazine – the cost would be $100
But if you agree to book the same advert for six months – you would receive a 20% discount. This means the cost of each advert reduced to $80.
However, if you agree to book for an even longer period of time – lets says 12 months – you would receive a 40% discount. This means the cost of each advert reduced to $60.
But why would the advertising sales staff agree to such a big discount. The answer is very simple, by getting your adverts booked in for the next 12 months they don’t have to spend time trying to find (and persuade) another advertiser to book an advert. This not only saves them time and effort, but it also saves the publisher expenses trying to find a new advertiser. So the discount offered is worth their while and it is worth your while by obtaining a discount from the rate card price.
But the discounts are even bigger with late space discounts
What are late space discounts
All newspapers and magazines have deadlines. The publisher has to send their publication to be printed at a set time every day, week or month – depending on whether their publication is daily, weekly or monthly. This is their deadline.
This means that the publisher must sell all (or as much as they can) of their advertising space before their publication is printed and sent out.
To help you understand this principle – think of a magazine as an aeroplane. If an aeroplane takes off with an empty seat, it means the airline won’t make any money on that one empty seat. Yet the airline still has to pay for airline staff, pilots, fuel, airport charges etc. So even if the airline received a payment of just one penny for that seat – it is better to earn an extra penny – than to let the aeroplane take off with an empty seat.
The same principle is true of newspapers and magazines. If a publication is printed with an empty white space (unsold advertising space) – that is the equivalent of an empty seat on an aeroplane.
Thus, it is better for the publisher to earn one penny for that empty space in their magazine – rather than let it go empty.
Armed with this knowledge you can now obtain some amazing advertising discounts.
So now follow this process for obtaining late space advertising discounts
1. Contact the magazine or newspaper you are interested in advertising in.
2. Ask them to send you a media pack
3. Wait until it arrives – then wait a few days before you contact the publisher and speak to the advertising sales person.
4. Explain you are interested in advertising, but don’t have much money (always plead poverty).
5. If the advertising space you want to advertise costs $200 – tell them you can only afford $50.
6. They will immediately say they can’t accept such a low payment (which is a lie).
7. And now this is the point at which you call their bluff.
8. Offer them $50 for the advert on a last minute basis.
9. Tell them you will send over a finished advert which they can hold for you if they have any late advertising space available when they reach their deadline.
10. Agree the price with them and supply them with your credit card details.
11. Inform them they can charge your credit card $50 if any late space does become available. This now means that if at the deadline they have been unable to sell all their advertising space, they know they have your advert as a backup.
Your advert is the equivalent to the airline earning one penny for that empty seat in the aeroplane.
In your case, the publisher earns $50 instead of nothing.
9 times of 10 – your advert will appear.
Occasionally the sales person might sell all their advertising space for more money – and thus, don’t need your booking. That’s fine, but the facts are they won’t sell 100% of their advertising space in each and every issue.
Use this method and you will be amazed just how much money you can save by buying advertising space at rock bottom prices.
