Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Thank you. That mostly answered my question. I guess the "spurt" will come once the majority of the magazine's subscribers have received their copies in the mail... but I don't know when that date is or was. The newsstand copies hit the shelves today and yesterday...

It's irrational to think that orders would come in so soon. This is my first time paying for an advertisement - I don't know what to expect. A little background on my ad and the magazine. The 1/12 advertorial is for a handbag - a pretty stylish one. The magazine sales person boasts a paid readership of 600,000. I did some calculations and in order for me to profit off this ad, I would need to receive a response rate of AT LEAST 1/100th of a percent which I believe equals .0001 in decimals... I should be able to make that at least, right?

This campaign will give your business/products more exposure, however do not expect orders to come in right away. You'll have to be present in the same magazine for a few months before getting any return on your investment.

The order rate will depend on the copy/image and the offer. Sometime it's very high and sometime it's not. It depends on what the ad says/looks like, and perhaps even on what else is competing for attention on the page.

I have clients that have placed similar ads and paid out their investment in 60 days. I have others that have sales in single digits (of units). It all depends on how compelling an offer you present and how well you present it. (I'm assuming that the profile of the readership is a match for your product. That's the first place to look. You probably won't sell many handbags if the publication is targeted at men, for example.)

Finally, I have one client who used this kind of advertorial placement and generated just a handful of sales, but got noticed by a major retailer who took on the product in more than 1,000 outlets. The client was extremely happy with results, even though the direct sales rate was terrible.

Dear jihanshareef,

"I guess the "spurt" will come once the majority of the magazine's subscribers have received their copies in the mail ..."

Don't guess. Know.

"The magazine sales person boasts a paid readership
of 600,000."

Remember that the magazine sales person is just that:
a sales person. They are there to sell space. What individual advertisers DO with that space is up to them.

Going back to the quote "I guess the "spurt" will come once the majority of the magazine's subscribers have received their copies in the mail ..." , the key here, and in truth, with ANY press ad or piece of marketing is alignment of desired outcome.

The thing about advertorials that makes them more effective in terms of them being noticed is that they look more like editorial content than they look like an ad.

Press ads that look like ads are often ignored BECAUSE THEY LOOK LIKE ADS. People don't like to be sold to, but they DO like to buy when the reason for buying aligns with their reason for wanting the thing on offer.

Ads work best when they offer a tangible benefit to the buyer. If your ad says something along the lines of "Designer handbags, 50 percent off" your ad will appeal to the bargain hunter. But if your ad asks your buyer "Want to look sexier at the nightclub?" along with an image of someone looking sexy at a nightclub, suddenly, your ad paints an imagined future of life as it will be once the buyer owns the nag in question.

Psychologically, this is a far more powerful sales strategy (and therefore, a better use of your advertising dollars) because the ad isn't selling the bag, the ad is asking the buyer to imagine her future as it will be as a result of having bought the bag.

The keys here are the context that your buyer is looking for, or that's likely to attract their attention, and desired outcome. These are things you can predict, and when you're armed with information you can predict you suddenly have something that a great number of advertisers do not have: control.

With control, you can predict when the spurt will come
by using your marketing to create mental pictures in the minds of your buyers, and by using other triggers such as showing desired outcome, using deadlines, offering social proof, and by offering a gift with purchase or the promise of an exclusive in store gift for buyers that place an order before a certain date.

What most small business owners buying this kind of ad don't realize is that simply having the ad in whatever publication is will NOT generate either massive sales or raise awareness. As a business to consumer merchant you might be better off buying a mailing list of women of a certain age and economic background and sending them direct mail pieces: post cards to begin with, then a sales letter, but these pieces MUST connect with their desired outcomes of looking glam, or of looking hip and trendy, or of being able to one up a neighbor or a girlfriend in some way, but the message must not be about your desire to sell handbags.

And with any sales letter like this, the sales path must
be clear and simple: there must be an order form, or a 1-800 telephone number, or a website, or some way that the potential buyer can place their order. There must be a rock solid guarantee, there must be a list of clearly defined benefits of ownership, there must be risk reversal and social proof in the guise of testimonials from happy buyers. Your buyers MUST feel that other people that remind them of themselves have already bought and that those people are DELIGHTED with their purchase.

And if you can offer a gift with the purchase as a way to thank the first few hundred customers (but be specific on how many gifts there are and how exclusive they are), then you also create urgency. In order for ads like this to be effective, there must be a reason for the buyer to take action NOW. Not next week, not in a day or two, now. Your offer, message, and desired outcome must be compelling enough to make your potential buyer fill out that form, pop it in an envelope, and mail it TODAY, or for them to pick up the phone or visit your website with their credit card in hand and for them to place that order RIGHT NOW.

I'll be honest here: I think the overwhelming majority of press ads are a waste of time, money, and perfectly good trees. The second the reader of the newspaper or magazine turns the page on any ad that hasn't caught their attention with a compelling offer or reason to find out more THAT SECOND, the ad they've just glanced at is dead and the money it's cost to place that ad is wasted.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA

Thank you very much for all of your comments. You've given me a lot to think about for my next advertisement. As an internet retailer, I've decided that my small budget would be best applied to internet advertisements. I think I might get into Linkshare (need to find out how it works, first). I especially agree with the comment from the last member: "A good rule of thumb for any promotional investment is not to do it if you cannot be the dominant voice in that space for that short period of time it is supposed to last." Looking back at the ad, my 1/12 advertorial (or 1/24, when the 2 pages are viewed as an entire section) looks ridiculously insignificant. And to boot, it's tucked into the BOTTOM far right of the right page. Lesson learned.

Jihanshareef you have your answer with the dominant voice comment made by someone else. Also the advertorial versus regular advertisement. As far as return rate goes as others have said it will vary widely. We have recently tried some similar tactics and the results were fairly mundane for many of the same reasons you describe.
I'd add something else to the equation. Don't spend money on a promotional investment unless you can afford to get no return on it particularly when starting out.

To the last point made by last commenter - excellent point. That has been echoing in my head since I saw the ad. I've got to be much more careful about how and where I spend the next dollars.