Page 168 - Duct Tape Marketing

Run Advertising That Gets Results

magazines, and other media outlets that you feel serve your target market
and ask them to send you a “media kit.” An advertiser’s media kit consists
of a description of the medium, demographics of readers or listeners, edi-
torial calendars, and advertising rates. This collection is where you start
to analyze opportunities to promote your business through advertising.

Most small businesses can create a simple spreadsheet to log the
majority of the possible advertising opportunities. This spreadsheet
should consist of the name of the medium, contact information, dis-
tribution or number of subscribers, cost of an ad, and a calculation
of the cost of the ad per 1,000 listeners, readers, or viewers. This last
number is known in the ad world as cost per thousand, or CPM (M
being the Roman numeral for 1,000).

When comparing each of the advertising mediums that follow,
it is important to understand that most advertising is sold on a cost
per thousand basis (CPM) and that when you are trying to compare
pricing, it’s very important to understand the CPM of an ad when
evaluating one against another.

A low-cost ad that doesn’t really reach anyone may actually be
more expensive in the big picture than an ad that is more expensive
per insertion but reaches a greater audience.

Typical Small Business Advertising Opportunities—Pros and Cons
The following is a list of the typical advertising mediums avail-

able to the small business in most communities. While this list may
not be exhaustive, it does cover the primary advertising tools that you
can employ in your lead generation work. I am admittedly a bit biased
toward several of these but try to offer the pros and cons that each may
bring your business.

Network television. While television advertising offers very high
impact, it is possibly the most expensive advertising buy and becom-
ing less and less effective for the small business with the advent of so
many other forms of television and television-like media.

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