My shop is geared towards the military, and I'm considering advertising in one of the magazines that caters to active duty and retired Marines. The cheapest ad is $265 for one month. I figured that would eat up about 1.5 years of profit and to make it back I would have to sell over $1200 worth of stuff.

I've tried blogads, free press releases and ads on my own websites, but nothing seems to work. Sales are growing over all but it's probably due to CP's growth. Nearly all my sales are marketplace.

I tend to think this investment isn't worth it. Anyone disagree?

you are in a hard nich there is a lot of competition out there - do you have your stuff in googlebase?

it might be worth a month - but i dont know depends on the type of ad - if it is one of those in the back of the book where there are 50 per page - i know i dont look at them - so it would probably be 1 in 100 even looking at it - and 1 in 50 of them actually checking out your shop....so you have to consider thier customer list size...

SC
Yep I don't think the economics make sense. I'm open to suggestions, so thanks for the Googlebase tip. Never heard of it.

I do print advertising and it's worth it to me but I do it for more than one reason.

1. Profit (admittedly this one is more like trying to break even if you just count directly generated sales from the ad -- which is hard to track by the way)
2. Brand recognition
3. To support the organization that publishes the magazine
4. To have more expenses to write off

Unfortunately to accomplish #2 studies have shown that you need to run an ad more than once, which of course will eat into #1.

However, the magazine I advertise in tends to be one that folks collect. I myself kept issues of the magazine for years and would look at them more than once! One of the reasons folks do this is that folks have their names or their friends' mentioned and of course keep that issue. So in that case I get more bang for my buck in terms of #1 and #2 when a gift giving time comes around and folks happen to be re-reading the magazine with my ad in it.

At any rate, print advertising is not something I did when I first started out because I was trying to operate on the $0 overhead, 100% profit plan With ecommerce the way it is now with so many folks using CafePress and CafePress like services and targeting niches, if I was serious about competing for space in a niche that already has folks in it, I would look at buying ads in a magazine that I know people in my niche read. Especially if that niche includes folks who don't go online very much (yes hard to believe but those folks are out there!).

quote:

Originally posted by Scott Kirwin:
SC
Yep I don't think the economics make sense. I'm open to suggestions, so thanks for the Googlebase tip. Never heard of it.

http://www.squidoo.com/googlebase-froogle - this should walk you thru it - it is free and it really works

I think the main drawback to print advertising is that unlike a clickable Internet ad, a person reading the print ad has to get up and get on the computer and type in the address. So the trick would be to make the print ad compelling enough to motivate a person to visit your online store.

So if you're selling 1 product per 100 visitors... place an ad in a publication that has 100,000 readers... assume your ad is good enough that 1 in 10 people will visit your store... then the ad should generate 100 sales (1% of 10,000 visitors.)

Multiply your average markup x 100 sales and if that number is higher than the cost of the ad, the ad should be profitable.

We KNOW: the circulation of the publication, the expected conversion rate of about 1 sale per 100 visitors, the markup, the cost of the ad... the only totally unknown variable is how many people who see the ad will visit the store.

10% may be too high a guess. The size of the ad will make a difference too. Far fewer people will see a small ad than a full page ad.

Print advertising is certainly worth it, but only if done correctly. I would not recommend running just one small ad in a monthly magazine one time. Small ads can work, but only as part of a "horizontal" ad campaign, i.e. one that extends over a long period of time. People need to see your ad multiple times before they will respond to it, especially since with a small ad you don't have a lot of space to tell your story.

If you're sticking with a small ad that can get buried in a magazine, I would recommend a minimum of 6 consecutive months, preferably a full year.

You could shorten that time frame with a larger ad, say a quarter page. Even at that, I would say three months would be the minimum.

If budget constraints don't permit these minimums, I wouldn't do it.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking, "Well, I'll just try it one month and see what happens." I guarantee that unless you're giving your stuff away for free, *nothing* will happen.

That leads to my next point...a big part of the response to any ad is the offer. Unless you're doing brand/image type advertising, a direct response type of ad requires a strong offer. "Unique T-Shirts available at www..." will not incent people to respond. A good price, discount, limited time offer, etc. will result in response. You could feature one or two items, and price them lower for the ad, making sure to reflect the "regular" price in the ad: "Unique Military T-Shirt Now On Sale $16.99, Regularly $22.99" or something like that.

Even if the magazine is not a financially viable advertising medium for you, I'm sure there are other niche websites or publications out there. What about local military organizations' newsletters, either print or online?

Anyway, you're approach in evaluating whether to advertise or not in that particular magazine is spot on. Advertising is not an expense, but an investment. And with any investment, there's always a return. Hopefully a positive one.

Good luck!

- Bob

Actually, as my post mentions, advertising is an investment AND and an expense (in the accounting use of the word).

Bob's advice to run multiple ads is what I alluded to in my post too when I mentioned branding and effectiveness. I run my ads consistently and use a "call to action". Back when coupon codes lasted longer I'd use those in the ad. I also offer specials on items I made myself.

Another tip, if you have a choice, is to request premium placement in the magazine: upper right hand corner, towards the front pages, attached to featured articles are example of places better than back page ad space where the only thing around the ad is a bunch of other small ads.