Courtesy of Denny Hatch's latest newsletter... As always, its the basic tips that demystify the process that experts often seem to forget (or over-complicate)
* Never hire a general agency to write, design and place direct response advertising. And don’t do it yourself.
* Before placing an insertion order for a direct response ad, learn everything you can about the publication as well as the readers and their behavior. Be sure that it regularly carries off-the-page ads, ideally for your competitors’ products. Put another way, if your competitors aren’t advertising there, chances are they tested it and it didn’t work.
1. Never buy retail. Only if you absolutely must have page 3 or page 5 of a major magazine should you pay full price. The reason: virtually all magazine publishers and reps negotiate and will sell space at up to 60 percent off.
2. One technique: Hang back until closing and then call at the last minute. Most magazines will take a space reservation up to 10 days after closing. Have the ad ready and the money set aside in your budget so you can move quickly and take advantage of a deal.
3. For budgeting purposes, start with a projected response of one order per thousand circulation and work down or up from there based on experience.
4. Use experienced direct response media buyers. Buying media wisely is a very time-consuming business. Prices, percentage points and response rates are constantly changing, and media buyers dedicate 100 percent of their time to being one step ahead of the game. In media buying, how you play the game greatly affects whether you will win or lose.
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