Advice on my offline ad idea

I certainly will keep this updated.

I plan on pitching the fact that there won't be any direct competition as well as the super targeted mailing.

For companies that do multiple things, I'll tell them that they can only advertise for one service OR buy the ad space for the others.

Ideas for these small ad catalogs so far:

home essential services:
locksmith, roofer, security & alarm, fire safety supplies, roofer, sider, plumber, electrician, hvac, mason, pool cleaning, pool installation, carpet cleaning, tiler, hardwood flooring, exterior painter, interior painter, appliance repairman, snow removal, foundation repair, handyman, pest control, moving company, tree cutting, stump removal, fencing, landscaping/lawnmowing, insulation, lawyer, auto mechanic, daycare, tattoo, pizza, chinese, builder (additions).

professional services:
injury lawyer, defense attorney, dwi attorney, traffic attorney, estate attorney, divorce lawyer, accountant, tax preparer, various dentist and doctor specialists, insurance agent, credit repair, bank/credit union, psychologist, reiki, lasix, optometrist

personal care & beauty:
nail salon, hair coloring, hair stylist, wig shop, beauty supply store, mens clothier, barbershop, botox, plastic surgeon, lasix, skin rejuvenation, massage, spa, mani/pedi, gym/fitness, shoe repair

restaurants by food style: (here I might do 3 business per category)
italian, eastern european, chinese, japanese, vietnamese, american, diner, greek, lebanese, sushi bar, ice cream

pet lovers only:
aquarium store, bird store, kennel, dog training, invisible dog fence, specialty food company, pet store, groomer, aquarium cleaning svce, veterinarian, dog walker

senior services: (might do 2 or 3 businesses/catgeory) hearing aids, house cleaners, weight loss, avon/mary kay, snowplowing, mowing, handyman, plumber, electrician, driveway sealer, carpet cleaning, gutter cleaning, window washing, senior activity groups, coffee shops, financial advisor -all should be heavily advertising senior/veteran discounts-

most mailing list services let you filter by things like:

homeowner/renter
has children
income
has pets
has bought mail order before
has requested information before
married/single
age


leadsplease.com seems to have a pretty good selection for .06 each name.


also, I'd like to make like a laminated card with emergency numbers like: immediate furnace repar, plumber, bail bondsman, lawyer, appliance repair, locksmith. But I'm not exactly sure how to market it and sell off each one?

Yeh I get it too... I don't think this would work in my area or most, it would be very hard to compete against companies like that that already have the the people locked in for advertising. Mine comes with ad's for dentist, lawyers etc as well.

I guess it depends on your area, not sure how it is up in NY but in FL here I don't see it working... unless you could go through and maybe fig out what niches aren't being used and could generate a response.

i thought that very same thing .. i get that valpac every month and just throw it away

i think the mobile marketing makes much more sense and definitely more cost efficient

I've been in advertising for years and am amazed at how some people feel that internet and mobile marketing is the ONLY way to go. I also love that mentality because it easily opens the doors for someone like myself who has sold everything from promotional products, coupons on grocery store cash register tapes, ads on video cases (back when there was vhs tapes), radio, televison commercials, yellow page ads, direct mail coupon magazines, internet marketing, text marketing, video marketing, etc.

Since I have many years in each of the above listed advertising media ... I would never limit the opportunity to help someone by telling them mobile is the only way to go and that print is trash can liners. That tells me that there are some very naive and young marketers who don't really have a clue how to help biz owners. That's ok because we were all newbies at one time (including me).

I remember thinking when I started in promotional product marketing I thought that was all that a biz owner needs. How ignorant I was at that time. As I graduated into other media markets and learned all the many ways to incorporate ideas and concepts from one media into another I started maximizing the results for my clients, increasing my profits in the process and my happy clients were referring their friends who were biz owners which cut down my prospecting time and expenses and increased my profits yet again.

It wouldn't hurt you and might even be smart of you to not be so closed minded to the various opportunities you have available to you instead of being zealously ignorant as I was when I was a newbie in various media marketing.

Be smart enough to know that every media has its positive as well as its negative aspects and then learn how to work by focusing on producing the results your clients are needing and looking for instead of focusing only on what it is that you have to sell. (I hope you get the value I just gave you).

Learn from someone who has not only been in the trenches for years but has grown and incorporated new ideas and services so as to be in a better place to truly help clients who were sold short by youngsters who had a good product but were so naive as to believe it was all the world needed. I can say that because I was that naive youngster too at one time.

Really? I dunno, seems super easy to me. Or maybe I'm misleading myself. If I can sell all these ad spaces (while also trying to sell website, mobile marketing, seo, ppc) and just simply put them together in an ad and have them mailed out, it seems extremely easy.

The hard work should just be going around town pitching businesses on any of these services. psprint.com has a lowest price guarantee and will do all the mailing.

Ideally, it would be nice to have reps out there selling adspace and services in other cities for me so I can just keep using the same templates over and over. If I can get 5 different mailings going for each city 6 times per year, that should be around 270k profit per city on just the mailings alone.

Thanks! I'm going to check out your link right after this.

Well, it's targeted at least. The first one I'm going to do is targeted to homeowners 45-75 years old making 75k+ (10,000 people). Where I live the average income is something like 20k only, so this market should appeal to a lot of certain businesses (that I hope don't mind paying for ads).

I've looked best I can (Valpak doesn't have a franchise here so no one is familiar with it), and I've seen roughly the same pricing you mention. I'm not sure what I should be charging for ads but if you scroll to the bottom of this response you'll see where I'm at.

I wouldn't mind saturation at all (especially at that low of postage) but I think I'd need to modify the "theme" so that it's directed to all incomes. I'd absolutely love to do a repeating 30,000 mailing or something like that, that would have ads for everyone. Thanks a ton for that idea.

I totally appreciate your offer to print and you're welcome to PM me but I'd be pretty amazed if you're able to beat my source, which I've found to be the lowest.

Thanks but maybe I wasn't clear, I'm building something like a newsletter that is full of advertisements, like a shared direct mail. I'm not direct mailing the businesses I'm selling ad space to. I can see where it could be confusing. If I offered to take 10,000 people to lunch that would be impressive!

Yes I want to understand more about mobile marketing for sure.

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UPDATE:

I'm almost ready to start selling ads! I've got the basic layout made and just need to print a mockup to take with me for a display.

Because I've never done anything like this before, I decided that I should best target a market that businesses who tend to advertise more will appeal to.

The list will be 45-75 year old homeowners making 75k+ and it comes out to roughly 10,000 people in my city.

I have room for 8 ads per page at the smallest, along with full page, 1/2, 1/4 and 1/3 spaces. Based on the smallest size (1/8th page), that would be 8 full pages and 64 spots of space.

I'm putting 6 pages of content in (tips from local professionals) to increase the readership and retention.

I'd like to run this 'newsletter' bi-monthly if I can. Right now I think $390 per 1/8th page advertisement should be a good price to sell it at. There will be no competing businesses except for restaurants. It comes out only .04 per home to them, so I really don't think they'd find a better value that hits their target market and in a format like this.

Here is a mockup of my cover I still have to improve it but you'll get the general idea. i52.tinypic.com/30hyfqc.jpg

Soooo, am I on the right track with this? Do you guys think it will be terribly difficult for me to sell 60+ ad spots for $390 in a month or so worth of time?

If I can get this going bi-monthly and repeat the same method with other themes and enter nearby cities as well, it should be pretty profitable for me (or anyone else who tries it). I hope I'm not screwing myself somehow here!

Besides selling the ad spaces you will need content for the newletter style paper. Where do you plan on getting the content? Online or are you planning on getting it locally from talking to biz owners.