have any of you bought ad space in a newspaper or magzine to promote your website?

Hi there,

Unfortunately, this is NOT the best advice. We all know that most companies have no clue how to write a good ad, and no clue on whether the ad is actually working to generate business for them. 99% of ads in newspapers/magazines have no direct response portion to see whether the caller/visitor/lead was actually generated by that ad.

Reardon's advice:

"I ran advertorials in local community newspapers and generated over six figures in business, based on one 4"x12" ad, basically remaining unchanged, over a 18 month period of time.

I've also tested the same ad in other mediums and have lost thousands."

This is spot-on. We ran one small ad for a client in local papers in America about 10 years ago. The first day the ad ran the client got 3 orders which meant the ad was paid up and then some for the next 3 years. They ran the ad for about 6 months and got tired of it and stopped running it (even though it still pulled reasonably well for them - that's clients for you).

They approached us about 2 months ago and we decided to run the exact same ad, same newspaper, different phone number (for tracking) and in 2 months they haven't gotten 1 (that's "one") phone call and obviously no orders.

Of course, we're re-doing the ad and doing it more like an advertorial - the original was an eye-catcher design and not written like a newspaper article.

The key to all of this is you need to test your ads as TeamBringIt said. Run several different ads with different phone numbers and tabulate the results so you can see which one is working best.

And of course, each medium is different, so what works well in a golfing mag might flop in a bowling mag. There's tons of advice on this kind of thing on this forum.

All the best,

Sasha

First; You gave some good advice. But.......

I hear that "You need to run an ad multiple times to get a result." That is one of those ideas that came from an old advertising sales book, written by an advertising agency. And now it's passed around like it's Gospel.
How many times do you need to hear a joke before you laugh? five? ten?
How many times do you need to watch a movie before you decide if you like it? three times?

Once.

After you run an ad once, you'll know if it works or not. Results, per insertion, don't raise over time. They decrease. That's why ads are constantly being replaced with new ones.

Now, by running the same ad over and over again, you'll get more sales/calls/responses....but they decrease over time. Why? Because the same people are seeing your ad over and over again.

Every direct mail, or advertising guy here knows this from experience.
The second ad may get 50% the response of the first ad. (that can vary wildly). Maybe three insertions will double the response of one insertion.
But the results, per insertion, don't grow after several identical ads are seen.

If that were true, the most profitable ads would be the ones that have been shown the longest. And that simply isn't true.


This is very good advice....depending.
Direct response ads are tracked. And the direct response ads you see a year ago, that are still running unchanged, are indeed profitable.

But branding ads? Any ad that doesn't ask for a direct response?
They can run for years without the company having any idea if they are effective.

Two ideas I think I'll use. Thanks.

"at least my name's out there." I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

well I read that gary halbert didn't advertise he website online he only ran ads in newspapers and magazines so I was looking to do the same. ( my website is a free site on business, investing, and lifestyle)

I am in the idea stages right which is why I asked here

thank you all for your answers and suggestions

-Jonathan

And this is probably the most important question to ask even before thinking about buying advertising on the newspaper, a ridiculous extreme example would be for me (living in Montreal where there are english and french newspapers) buying an english advertising when my prospects are francophones

Yes, I just recently tested a small classified ad in a newspaper with very favorable results. I'm going to be posting a thread outlining exactly what I did later on today.

If done properly it can be a low cost and effective way to get clients.

Andrew

There's a 3rd one: "It's exposure." It doesn't make money but they feel it helps brand them. Even if they're wrong about that. They will say, "at least my name's out there."

If the ad is for, say, 16.37% off, anyone who asks for 16.37% off has been moved to do so by the ad. All you have to do is tabulate.

If the ad sends them to download something from a webpage of yours that is mentioned nowhere but in that ad, you count the number of people who downloaded and you know how many people responded to your ad.