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 they're 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.

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