Another try at my monthly magazine ad

12 years ago

Mike,
Are the readers of the mag trade specific business owners?

If so what?

Best,
Ewen

P.S. Since the reader doesn't know what this is about, or if you can really help...

he/she is likely to be hesitant and to put the call off.

To counter this it would be good to test a FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

In many cases this adds to the response numbers.

P.P.S. The ad also needs to blend in with the layout of the mag
so it doesn't look like one. Use a news style headline...

like...

-----------------------------------------------------
{City] [business type] Profits Up In This Down Economy
-----------------------------------------------------

People buy mags and newspapers to read the stories, not to read ads.

Some ideas for you

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512 Designs

12 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Mike,
Are the readers of the mag trade specific business owners?

If so what?

Best,
Ewen

P.S. Since the reader doesn't know what this is about, or if you can really help...

he/she is likely to be hesitant and to put the call off.

To counter this it would be good to test a FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

In many cases this adds to the response numbers.

This is more of a community magazine that's placed in local business waiting rooms like doctors, dentists, and hospitals. It's also placed in racks at the entrances of a bunch of supermarkets.

Theres no specific audience other than the people and business owners of our rather large community. My hope is to entice the current advertisers and business owners who read it with my various services. This month I wanted to tackle my sms appointment reminder service.

Although your comments gave me an idea for a quick change.

Mike

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ewenmack

12 years ago

Originally Posted by 512 Designs

Theres no specific audience other than the people and business owners of our rather large community. My hope is to entice the current advertisers and business owners who read it with my various services. This month I wanted to tackle my sms appointment reminder service.

Although your comments gave me an idea for a quick change.

Mike

Mike,

What you've said reinforces what I said about the need to blend in as a news story look.

Using a local business success story in the headline draws the business owners into it and ignores the rest of the crowd.

There may not be many business owners read the mag though.

Best,
Ewen

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ChristianBerg

12 years ago

Maybe Im new to the forum but Im not new to the game.

I dont want to sound harsh but this magazine ad is a waste of money.

I personally dont spend a dime on these kind of things anymore, I just do (and I would suggest to same to you) direct response mail, with a strong call to action. But there is still a chance of succeeding with a Ad in ANOTHER magazine.

Some FREE advice:

1. Narrow your audience down
(get rid of magazines for everyone, buy ads in niche magazines like for upper management,
doctors, Lawyers)
2. then you are able to create an Ad they will respond to
3. get to know the problem of your niche audience
4. use "insider" words in your ads like bubble boy in poker
5. dont use boring images (use nice looking grils, people doing stupid or funny things etc)
6. you need a stronger call to action, bonus code, or freebie for people to respond.

In my personal experience a "bonus code" works 3-5x better that a 30 day trail offer.

All the Best

Christian

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512 Designs

12 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Mike,

What you've said reinforces what I said about the need to blend in as a news story look.

Using a local business success story in the headline draws the business owners into it and ignores the rest of the crowd.

There may not be many business owners read the mag though.

Best,
Ewen

Hmmm. So do you think I should make some sort of teaser headline and ad and get people to visit a site or whatever for the rest of the story? That could be interesting.

Originally Posted by ChristianBerg

Maybe Im new to the forum but Im not new to the game.

I dont want to sound harsh but this magazine ad is a waste of money.

I personally dont spend a dime on these kind of things anymore, I just do (and I would suggest to same to you) direct response mail, with a strong call to action. But there is still a chance of succeeding with a Ad in ANOTHER magazine.

Some FREE advice:

1. Narrow your audience down
(get rid of magazines for everyone, buy ads in niche magazines like for upper management,
doctors, Lawyers)
2. then you are able to create an Ad they will respond to
3. get to know the problem of your niche audience
4. use "insider" words in your ads like bubble boy in poker
5. dont use boring images (use nice looking grils, people doing stupid or funny things etc)
6. you need a stronger call to action, bonus code, or freebie for people to respond.

In my personal experience a "bonus code" works 3-5x better that a 30 day trail offer.

All the Best

Christian

Christian,

I get a free ad every month in exchange for maintaining their mobile website.....so it doesn't cost me anything out of pocket. This is nice because it allows me to do a different ad each month until I find something that works.

I do agree that direct mail would be good too and it's on my to-do list.

Mike

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Eddie Spangler

12 years ago

Well you now have further evidence that people do not normally respond to magazine ads. They are not trained to, they are trained to gloss over the pretty pictures, read an article or 2 and move on.

Its hard to get them to go from looking at a mag to entering info into a squeeze page.

Your offer will have to be stop them in their tracks and get them to react now because they may never open the rag er mag again and this ad is unlikely to work.

I still like the idea of offering a free fancy qr code or a highly discounted mobile site or FB timeline cover.

Matter of fact the timeline thing is a big deal as everyone has to convert by end of month and there will be a buzz as everyone is thinking "Oh no, what do I do "

Bam they see your ad for a special $20 timeline image, normally $149 and now they might take some action.If you dont want to sell then offer a report on the new changes and what everyone should know about them.

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fitz10

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

I still like the idea of offering a free fancy qr code or a highly discounted mobile site or FB timeline cover.

Matter of fact the timeline thing is a big deal as everyone has to convert by end of month and there will be a buzz as everyone is thinking "Oh no, what do I do "

I strongly disagree with this. In my experience most business owners want to eliminate problems, not keep up to date with the latest technology. Having no shows is a real problem and pain point for many businesses, it's something they can immediately connect with (if they have that problem), most businesses don't even know about changes in Facebook or QR codes.

I would write the ad almost like a short newspaper story. People are programmed to skip ads, but if they see a newspaper story about eliminating no shows and that's something that's highly relevant to them they're going to read it. At the end just write something to the effect of, "To learn more about mobile appointment reminders call 555-555-5555 or visit www.thisismysite.com." Something a little jazzier would be better, but you catch my drift.

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Eddie Spangler

12 years ago

Originally Posted by fitz10

I strongly disagree with this. In my experience most business owners want to eliminate problems, not keep up to date with the latest technology. Having no shows is a real problem and pain point for many businesses, it's something they can immediately connect with (if they have that problem), most businesses don't even know about changes in Facebook or QR codes.

I would write the ad almost like a short newspaper story. People are programmed to skip ads, but if they see a newspaper story about eliminating no shows and that's something that's highly relevant to them they're going to read it. At the end just write something to the effect of, "To learn more about mobile appointment reminders call 555-555-5555 or visit www.thisismysite.com." Something a little jazzier would be better, but you catch my drift.

Heres the thing, I get where you are coming from in general BUT you have to understand the audience. This is some type of community mag as far as I can tell and I assume the advertisers are mostly small merchants and service providers.
I also assume that there are a handful at most B2B ads and that for the most part people arent going to respond anyway BECAUSE thats how it goes with these type of mags, they are pretty to look at but nobody does anything with them.
The BEST chance of connecting and getting someone to take action is through something that most biz owners reading can probably relate to and that is FACEBOOK,they have for personal , biz or both and it is a pain point if they have no idea what to do.

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512 Designs 12 years ago

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I appreciate it.

Since I'm down to the wire again I'll probably just go with something like I have above but tweak it a bit.

But since I can advertise each month, I'm wondering what I can offer something to regular consumers instead of trying to go B2B? Maybe do some sort of affiliate ad or CPA ad or something like that?

So let's throw it out here.

If you had available a free 3.5" by 3 " ad (basically a 1/6 page) that would be seen by 60,000 people (most likely a mixture of regular consumers and small business owners)....what would you advertise?

Mike
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- Mr. Subtle 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by 512 Designs
  
  But since I can advertise each month, I'm wondering what I can offer something to regular consumers instead of trying to go B2B?
  
  Nuthin' wrong with going B2B.
  
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RentItNow

12 years ago

I think it's great mike. It is something different. Would make me wonder....what does this guy know?

I would try to test the lines a bit quickly in adwords to confirm tho. Prob the call to action too. Google will throw you $100 usually or is it $75 now to test?

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I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.

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jspmedia

12 years ago

any stats on last ad run?

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Maryland Local SEO Firm

Local Web Marketing

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ChristianBerg

12 years ago

@512 Designs

As you are able to advertise for free, I have an Idea how to make some bucks and learn to optimize your campains:

Create different campains with differnet Logos, Slogans, Bonuses: track your results create some stats, test it for 6 Months and then:

Create a WSO about your gained knowledge and experience, with stats about the different campains

All the Best

Christian

PS: Im serious.

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racso316

12 years ago

I do agree that the lack of responses might be due to the media and how the magazine is not targeted to your prospects. However, since you have a free ad anyways, might as well use it.

I would do the free recorded message. Get rid of the chairs. Change the headline to something more compelling - Attention business owners "Give me 6 minutes and I'll tell you how you can boost your sales without spending more money on advertising"
Call 1-800 xxxxxxx Free recorded message reveals how: (and go into benefit bullets)
-The secret weapon most business owners don't know about
-2 ways how you can communicate with your clients adding money to your bottom line
-3 mistakes etc etc
Call before April 15th and get a free xxxx
Just my thoughts

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redcell1

12 years ago

Honestly it does not drive me to action.
I would rather drive a phone call then a web visitor because at least you have a number to call rather then just another visitor in your analytics

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Mr. Subtle

12 years ago

Originally Posted by 512 Designs

So here's a new ad I created to try to sell my SMS appointment reminder service.

I saw your ad first and was wondering what you were advertising. It wasn't until I read your post and realized what you were trying to sell.

Since the size of your ad looks like one of those you see ganged 6-up on a few pages in the back of the magazine I thought perhaps something quick and to the point might make it stand out among the text heavy/busy ads you normally see there:

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Mobile Tactics

12 years ago

Here is a rough draft, I ran out of room as I was finishing it, but you get the idea.

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Jerry McGough 12 years ago

If you want to have any chance of getting them to jump from the mag to a website the domain must be very short and/or very easy to remember.

Here's one that pertains and is available: NoShowNoDough.com
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RentItNow

12 years ago

Payday loan CPA...but make them seasonally appropriate.

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Mobile Tactics

12 years ago

You could ask them to run a bigger ad once instead of the monthly ads, and then run an ad that looks like an editorial interview. You would then use that in your direct mail pieces as a credibility booster.

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Eddie Spangler

12 years ago

Mr Subtle rules. If I werent such a self-proclaimed marketing genius I would pay him to do my ads.

This is straight genius!!

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Another try at my monthly magazine ad

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