The media is a powerful — so much so that the average person
spends an enormous amount of their life consuming what the media has
to offer in one form or another. And while their consuming the
media, people spend a significant percentage of that time looking
at, listening to or watching advertisements.
If you
want to take advantage of this captured audience and use the power
of the media to tell the world about your product or service, you’ll
need to know what you're doing.
Advertising
in Newspapers and Magazines
There are two kinds of
advertising you can purchase in newspapers and magazines —
classified and display. Classifieds are the small ads, usually in
the back of the publication, while display ads can be almost any
size, from a small corner of a page to a massive double-page
spread.
If there's a publication you're interested in
advertising in you can either go to their website (the rate card
section) or call their advertising department to find out its rates.
Now don’t have a heart attack. Yes, advertising in the print media
really is that expensive, and for most home businesses it probably
just won't be that economical.
There is, however, an
alternative: niche and trade magazines. If you've ever looked around
in a newsagent, you’ll have seen just how many magazines are
available and they fill every conceivable niche you can think of in
the market. You therefore need to find the right magazine people who
are interested in your services might read.
For example, if you're a wedding photographer, look for a
magazine called ‘Your Wedding’, ‘Bride’, or something similar.
Advertising in these magazines should be cheaper than placing an ad
in a general-audience publication, and far more likely to actually
get a responses.
Advertising on the
Radio
Wherever you are, there's probably a local
radio station, which is a place you should consider advertising once
your home business grows enough to allow an advertising budget.
Some people think that the only kind of home business that
can benefit enough from radio ads to justify the cost is business
that caters to the car market. Since radio is now almost entirely
limited to use as an in-car entertainment, it’s likely that almost
everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner who might be interested
in what you're offering. If you offer something this type of
consumer needs, there’s a good chance you’ll get a
response.
Unfortunately, that response could be a bit
overwhelming and short-lived — thanks to the time-sensitivity of
radio. You could get mobbed the day your ad runs, and then forgotten
very quickly. Radio advertising offers the listener no opportunity
to keep your ad and refer to it later, or to find it again in the
future. Thus you’ll probably discover an ad that uses a phone number
could be particularly useless.
Advertising on the
Television
Unless your business is large, television
advertising is probably a bad idea. It would be difficult to produce
and air an ad, even on a local cable channel, for less than $10,000.
Of course, if there's a market for your product and you've got the
budget, you might take a gamble and hopefully succeed.
The home businesses that tend to do best with TV ads are ones
that have a ‘unique and useful invention’ product with
easy-to-demonstrate benefits — think infomercial. Research shows
that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a free phone
number and a price point of $19.95.
Advertising on
Billboards
This is an advertising media that often
gets overlooked, but can be very effective if you do it right.
Billboard ads are relatively expensive, but they do generally stay
up for a long time, and they can be very specifically targeted to an
area — the one where you're physically located. You'll get the best
results if you can put one near enough to your business so it reads
‘turn left at the next junction’, or something similar. Phone
numbers are, again, not that useful, although you may have some luck
putting up a website address.
Advertising at the
Movies
Finally, here's another one that often gets
overlooked. If you show up to the cinema early, you’ve probably
noticed that before the big-budget ads play, ads for local
businesses are run. This can be a great place to advertise
relatively inexpensively in quite a high-profile way, since you have
a captured audience that has nothing to do in the dark except watch
the big screen. This type of advertising works especially well for
take out food businesses.
