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Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2004
CHAPTER 4 - MONEY
SAVING MARKETING TIPS
So
how can you use these paid advertising vehicles to your
benefit? How do you maximize the impact of your ads so
that people will notice you, without breaking the bank.
I’ve been doing it for years…here’s what you need
to know:
Classifieds
Work – When you
wade into the advertising wars, start small. If your
product or service is one that is generally in demand,
classifieds will probably serve you well for starters.
They’re cheap (maybe $30 to $70 per day) and you’ll
reach a large audience, especially in the major daily
newspapers. Depending on the product or service you’re
selling, it won’t take much to generate a return of
$30 to $70.
Always
look to your local newspaper first. Studies show that
people pay more attention to the classifieds and
articles in their community paper than they do to the
major dailies. That’s not to say that more people read
your local paper---just that people tend to spend a bit
more time reading the articles and tend to give more
credibility to the ads they see, since they are from
right in their community.
Don’t
pay the asking price
– Buying ads is a bit like buying a used car. The
price really isn’t the price. It’s the starting
point. Obviously classifieds are non-negotiable because
they cost so little to begin with. A 15 week radio
campaign on the other hand, could easily come down 10%
from the proposed selling price before the deal is done.
The same goes for TV ads or newspaper ads. Any ad space
that’s not sold by the station or newspaper generates
$0 in revenue. So if the $100 radio spot they were going
to sell you ends up being sold to you for $50, the
station is still better off than if they don’t sell
the ad space at all.
I
was recently approached by a local radio station to run
a 15 week campaign, with a price tag of $15,000. This
included the spots as well as a promotion we were
running. I also proposed a contest to accompany the
flight.
I
didn’t have the budget for a $15,000 radio campaign,
so I started working on the price. My first step….do
nothing. I left the pitch meeting and never called the
sales rep back. I made her call me. I explained that
$15,000 was too much. Quicker than you could say
“radio campaign”, the price magically shrunk to
$13,500. Then we talked about dropping the contest spots
and running just the regular spots for under $10,000. In
the end, I passed on the opportunity. I didn’t believe
that the station was large enough or had the right
audience for our company to make a profit on the deal.
Still, it was a clear example of how quickly an ad
campaign can come down in price
Continue Chapter 4 >>
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