What To Ask Before You Book Advertising
Izzy PR has been booking advertising for many, many years for clients.
Any marketing spend, including advertising, should be very carefully considered, to ensure it has the most chance of being effective for you, whatever your goal. This could be to raise profile, launch a new product, or boost sales, for example.
Businesses receive many offers of advertising every week – and many of the ones we look at for our clients aren’t worth it for them.
An advertising rep has been given or curated a list of businesses, and simply called or emailed them to flog them the space.
They have a target to hit, and they don’t really care who buys the advertising space – including businesses who will not benefit at all from it because it’s entirely the wrong place to book an advert.
It should be noted – not all ad reps are unscrupulous target hunters! There are some brilliant ad reps out there too though – these are the ones that talk you through packages, options, content for that edition and think about how you fit in. They take the time to understand your company and market to ensure they are offering you the best options.
A poor advertising deal – how we saved a client a bad ad spend
This article was inspired after an incident with a client recently. They had been offered advertising and asked us to create the artwork for it. It hadn’t previously been planned into our content strategy, but that’s OK – we can be fluid!
We asked the client what they knew about the publication and readership and it wasn’t enough to book with confidence so we stepped in – and were horrified by the response!
Not only were we unable to find out if the publication would be suitable, but we were dealing with an ad rep who told us to: “Try your luck and see how you get on.”
Er…no thank you.
So…here’s what you should be asking and know the answers to before you book advertising, whether it be in print or online
If you ask for their media pack, it should all be in there for you to see. If it’s not, it’s OK to ask for more details – if they want the sale, they will be helpful to you.
What to know before you advertise
Readership
Who is the magazine aimed at – target audience? They should be able to answer this in one line, e.g: ‘People living in Kent’
How old are the target audience readers?
How old are the actual readers?
What stage of life are they – anything related to property ownership / mortgage status would be useful
Where do they live? Ask for a split between print and online readership. Percentages of counties / towns would be useful so you know if the publication is in the area you sell to.
What income bracket are they?
What’re their interests?
Any lifestyle info? (Travel budgets, vehicle spend etc?
Distribution
Where is the title distributed physically – print versions?
How many people receive it on email on subscription?
Split of readership between print and digital.
How many people are on their database?
Previous copies
Ask them to send you the last 3 editions of the publication
Ask for readership figures if they are only online – how many hits do they get?
Marketing:
Ask for their social media links – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn are the main ones, and see if their timelines are kept updated and if they have a good following and engagement.
Ask how they market the publication – how do people find out about it to increase their sales?
Who do they market it to? (This goes back to target audience)
This is all VERY simple stuff for an advertising team to give to you – and they really should expect to be asked for it.
For example…would you go into a shop and hope you come out with the right clothes if the shop assistant choosing for you doesn’t know your size, height, colour preferences or what it’s for?
Please book advertising carefully – if you are being rushed for an answer because the deadline is soon or that price expires, run away…and fast.
Advertising is best booked in advance, withy careful consideration.
Make sure it’s the right place for you to advertise, where your target audience, who are interested in your company, products, services and price, will see you.
If you need help to understand advertising opportunities, just get in touch – we can do all the research for you and make sure your spend is a good one!
