Page 180 - Duct Tape Marketing

164 Part III: Creating and Placing Ads

ߜ Place your ad on the day that makes sense for your market and mes-
sage. Here are some examples:

• If your target prospect is an avid price shopper, don’t miss the
issues full of grocery ads.

• If your target is a sports fanatic, advertise in Monday’s sports sec-
tion where your prospect will be reading the weekend recaps.

• If you’re promoting weekend dining or entertainment, advertise in
the Thursday and Friday papers and in entertainment sections —
unless you’re trying to influence prospects in out-of-town markets,
in which case you’d better run your ad Tuesday and Wednesday to
allow time to make weekend travel plans.

• If your ad features an immediate call to action (Call now for a free
estimate), don’t choose the weekend papers if you’re not open to
handle the responses.

ߜ Advertising in the Sunday paper usually costs more — and delivers
more. The number of single-copy sales is 10–40 percent higher on
Sundays than on weekdays. What’s more, readers spend up to three
times as long with the Sunday paper as they do with weekday papers,
and Sunday’s paper tends to have a longer shelf life. Even if your news-
paper charges a premium for Sunday ad placements, calculate the cost
per thousand and you’re likely to find that the cost of reaching readers
is cheaper on Sunday than on any other day.

Small-budget ad-sizing tips

Even though more readers note full-page ads than half-page ads, and more
note half-page ads than quarter-page ads, there’s good news for small-budget,
small-size advertisers.

Partial-page ads pull fewer readers — but the reader numbers don’t drop as
fast as the cost of the space does. For example, while a full-page ad pulls
about 40 percent more readers than a quarter-page ad, the quarter-page ad
costs roughly a quarter of the price. As you work out a small-budget ad plan
with your advertising salesperson, here’s some general advice to follow:

ߜ If you have to choose, opt for frequency over size. Plan the largest ad
that you can afford to run multiple times and don’t worry if the most you
can afford is only a partial page.

ߜ Match your ad size to the size of your message. If you’re opening a
major new location, go for the biggest ad you can afford. But if you’re
promoting a $5.99 product, a big splashy ad is likely to be overkill.