Page 183 - Duct Tape Marketing

167Chapter 11: Creating Print Ads

Most small businesses limit their magazine ads to publications that serve
particular business or interest groups, or — especially in the case of those in
the travel industry — to city or regional travel magazines.

Selecting magazines

Review the magazines that serve your industry or your target market. A good
reference is the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) advertising source-
book, which is available on the reference shelves of many public libraries.
The catalog features data provided by business and consumer magazines as
well as by broadcasters, direct marketing houses, and other media resources.
You can research a specific magazine or look up an interest area to find the
various magazines serving readers in that category.

Say that your business sells software to small banks, and you want to run ads
in magazines read by small institution bankers. Go to the SRDS Business
Publications Advertising Source Directory, turn to the Banking section, and
you’ll find 20 pages of magazines ranging from the ABA Banking Journal to
U.S. Banker. Each entry lists the magazine’s editorial profile, editorial person-
nel, ad representatives, page dimensions, deadlines, and rates including com-
missions, discounts, and color charges.

Scheduling placements

As you schedule magazine ads, consider the following:

ߜ Frequency matters. Be sure that your budget is big enough to place
your ad in the same magazine at least three times over a three- to six-
month period. Or, if you want to advertise during a single month, choose
three magazines with similar readership profiles and run your ad in each
one, building frequency for your message through what is called
crossover readership between publications.

ߜ Magazines have long lead and response times. For example, if you’re
trying to inspire spring vacation business, your magazine ads will have
to run well in advance of the March and April vacation months in order
to allow prospects time to read your ad, request information, and make
plans. Unlike newspaper and broadcast ads, response to magazine ads
builds slowly and continues for months and even years into the future.

ߜ Full-page ads dominate, but partial-page ads compete well. Partial-
page ads frequently share the page with other ads and end up toward
the back of the magazine, but they also share the page with editorial
content, which means that readers often spend more time on the page.