Paid Advertising in Newspaper?

[purplefdu]

I picked up a cute local pet themed newspaper and discovered their ad rates are very budget friendly. They distribute at 500+ locations in the New England area and some of the national advertisers are pretty impressive (although based locally). $75 would get me three month of a color 2x2 ad. $60 would net me a black and white ad. I'm thinking it would be a pretty cheap way to get some local exposure. Has anyone had any experience with advertising a smaller business in a paper?

[Will]

$75 would get me three month of a color 2x2 ad

That does sound like a pretty good deal.

Maybe one good way to find the info you're looking for is to contact other businesses with ads in that publication. They can give you a realistic picture of how well your ad will perform.

[Linsey Knerl]

Small local ads seem have a good sticking rate where I live. Especially niche-type publications. Is this the only publication of its kind? Cause that would make it most effective. I like Will's advice of checking with other advertisers (although they may be reluctant to give you that -- and others don't seem to track their referrals very well.) The best question I can ask is: Would it kill you to lose that money and risk minimal exposure at best (which is still better than none)? If not, I say go for it.

[Greg]

Those rates do sound cheap for OFFline advertising, but I think you might have a better return on your investment if it was spent online.

With a $75 budget for 3 months, you could have several ads running, change up the text copy multiple times, and reach a much more physically diverse audience. And probably a much more targeted audience too.

I vote for spending that money at Google Adwords.

(Here's a series of articles on using Adwords put together by our sales guru Lynn.)

[purplefdu]

No offense but I'd rather tattoo the url on my dogs naked butt than spend it on Google Adwords or any other form of Google advertising. No reason to feed the monkey that doesn't perform unless you play by the invisible set of rules.

I might try contacting a couple of them, I'm not sure how they would differ as most of them don't really have dynamic websites just static informational sites with a phone number

Maybe a good excuse to contact the national chain with the huge advertising budget and ask how its doing for them. We love their products anyway. Any excuse to call and chat is a good one.

[dcramer]

You could try contacting one of those people who sell adspace on their skin.

[arcadian]

you repulse and intrigue me dc...

[patton]

I think print is old news. Go with the net

[wealth2wealth]

i think it is an interesting idea to place ads in that mag, how we can contact it?

[dvdreplication]

It looks like an interesting deal. Its very interesting idea to post ads.