Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

What would you possibly do with that information? The "average" is not representative of anything you can really use. What it means is that almost every observation is either higher or lower than the number, with no indication of how much different it is.

For example, what if the answer is that the average response is 1.00%. That means there are some that are much lower (e.g., 0.01%) and some that are much higher (e.g., 10%). What have you learned?

It depends on the publication, the readership, the subject, the geographic location, the year, and a dozen other factors.

Responses to your question -- in its general format -- is not going to give you any useful input.

MGoodman has made an extremely good point.

The question is: What problem were you really trying to solve? Because the question you have asked will never reveal information you can use for anything sensible.

Not even if you get a dozen answers, or even if all those answers were in alignment.

Marketing isn't about knowing "stuff" like average response rates. It's about understanding what questions you need to ask, and what the answers to those questions are going to be able to help you to do.

This site is an fantastic resource and we are incredibly patient with newbies and beginners - but we all can't bust a collective brain cell trying to figure out what you are trying to achieve based simply on a one-line question and a totally blank profile.

Throw us a bone here... Explain your task, your problem, who you are, where you work, the market you are in, and what you are trying to do. And then let's see if we can help.

Over to you.

I totally agree with the above answers – the question in its present form is both unanswerable within the word limit for a response and of absolutely no value.

Did you know that the response rate for classified adverts for second hand jet engines varies from about one in a trillion for yellow pages through to about one in 1257 in Aviation Weekly? (Source – our client AJW who for a joke put their advert for Rolls Royce Engines into the UK national yellow pages)

On the other hand, the response rate for domestic pet-sitting services is about one in 10,000 for yellow pages (Based on the claimed number of readers). It would probably be zero in Aviation Weekly.

Did you know that at any given time, the average air temperature of the entire world is 15.3 degrees Celsius? Now that you know that, what are you going to wear next week end?

Get the picture?

More facts and definition please, then we can help.

Best wishes


Steve Alker

Dear info,

It's a good, positive question. Positive, but vague. Which leads to MY question for you, Info: Is this a student question? It sounds like one, and a badly structured one at that. I may well be wrong, but we'll see.

As things stand, your question can be answered in a thousand different ways. The average could be 5 percent. Or 150 percent. Or 34.686 percent.

Which classifieds? Where? In what niche? And so on. Please, pose a question that can be answered and you'll get an answer you can use.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA