Getting the Biggest Bang from Your Advertising

I'm going to let you in on something really interesting I learned a while back when having a discussion with a former ad sales rep and good friend of mine.

Here it is: It is very possible to advertise your organization in major publications at a fraction of the cost you may think!

One trick to use is monitoring the times when a given publication is printed. Did you know that newspaper and magazine sales reps don't always meet their weekly or daily quotas?

When this happens, they cannot go back to the publisher with empty spots in the publication. Having personally known sales reps for several newspapers, I've seen examples where even half-page full colour display ads have gone to small businesses at half price! All of this happened simply because the sales rep needed to fill in a page of the paper at the last minute. Given the choice, an editor would prefer to give away a steal than be robbed of any revenue at all!

However, this is not something that can be arranged all of the time. Beyond the obvious route of hiring a marketing professional to monitor and negotiate the best deals for you, the key here is...you guessed it:

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS!

As with PR, take time to invest in your contact building. It all pays off in the end. Please leave me your comments and let me know what you think.
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Mark Buzan is the owner of Action Strategies, a public affairs & marketing communications consultancy. You can subscribe now to his monthly PR & marketing tips newsletter by visiting www.actionstrategies.ca and dropping down the newsletter menu.