1. Classified ads in newspapers.
If you’re advertising in classified newspapers across the state, there are state newspaper associations that offer great rates on almost every newspaper in your state. Discounted newspaper advertising rates can be 30% – 50% – 70% off the listing, if you purchase classified ads through your state newspaper association. Yes, they are much cheaper.
State associations can be found online, in directories, and in “The Intelligent Testing System,” a program that provides specific benchmark data on classified ads. It is a database collecting the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all US state newspaper associations, along with the major national classified ad buying associations. It also includes specific discount rates for virtually all local newspapers published in the United States.
If you want to learn how to place 100 to 10,000 classified ads across the country with a single phone call at deeply discounted prices, The Intelligent Testing System is the ultimate classifieds program. You’ll see exactly where to buy cheap newspaper advertising and how to buy wholesale newspaper classifieds at a discount.
2. Advertising in Local Newspapers.
Discounted advertising rates abound in local newspaper advertising if you know how to ask. If you’re only buying an ad once, it’s pretty hard to get cheap newspaper advertising rates. But if you are a local retailer, all of your ads will be local advertising. And there’s a good chance you’re running more than just one ad, so you have A) good credibility and B) great bargaining power, so you need to C) apply for a discount on all the local ads in your print campaign.
Everyone loves a winning ad: advertisers love it because it consistently generates business, newspapers love it because if a client’s retail print ad is successful, they’ll run it more often, maybe forever. So apply for a discount on your print advertising rates, and this is how you do it.
3. How to politely request a discounted newspaper ad fee:
Ask for
or 2 listings for the cost of 1 (buy one get one free special)
o Request a larger listing at a smaller listing price
o Buy 2 and get a FREE rate
o Mail order fee
o Multiple Insertion Rate
o Contact fee (for longer insertion contracts)
o Remaining space rate
4. Send out a press release with every ad you place.
A press release doubles your exposure and with the successful placement of your press release, your credibility goes way, way up.
Remember, newspaper publishers love press releases. They have a whole paper to fill out every day (every week for the weekly papers) and writing it all themselves is hard. Newspaper advertising needs editorial support, and if you write your press release correctly, you are providing this editorial support. Check out our 85-page chapter on writing press releases in the book “How to Market a Product for Under $500.”
5. Ask your local newspaper for “remaining space.”
If you run national ads, use a remnant buying service – there are several excellent ones and they are shown in the book “Direct Marketing Strategies”.
“Remnant space” is the term that makes all newspaper and magazine editors cringe.
Also called “waiting space,” this is the unsold portion of the newspaper that remains just before the newspaper goes to press. Like an empty seat on an airplane when the door is closing, newspaper advertising space is a perishable commodity. The newspaper publisher can’t just leave it blank – it would appear as a white hole in a gray printed page, so sometimes they’ll run an inside ad for the paper, or sometimes a free ad for a charity like the United Way. But most of the time it sells, and whatever you pay for it is better income than an unpaid space. This can mean cheap and deeply discounted newspaper advertising space for you.
Remaining ad space is always sold at the end of the sales cycle, in the last closing moments before the printing process. You won’t know if your remnant ad appeared in the paper until the last second, but the deep discounts make it worth the wait.
Discounted newspaper advertising rates can be as high as 80% of the listing. That’s right, you can get cheap newspaper advertising space for 20 cents on the dollar by applying for “holdover space” or “reserve space.” To see the full article on how to buy newspaper space at a discount, read the Unusual Marketing Techniques book or click through to our website, as we sometimes feature this article in our rotating article submissions.
Regardless of what price you pay for your newspaper advertising rates, always ask for a great placement of your ad in the FRONT of the newspaper, at the TOP of the page (called above the fold), and aligned to the right, in the HAND RIGHT (outer position) of the RIGHT page. This is the point of greatest visibility in the newspaper. Ads that are at the bottom of the paper or buried in the gutter have much lower visibility and lose effectiveness due to this poor placement.
You must request this “FFRH” (Front Right Hand Forward) position above the fold point before saying “yes” to the final placement of your ad. Once you say yes to placing your ad in the newspaper, you won’t have any further bargaining power. Even deeply discounted print advertising rates won’t help if your ad isn’t seen because it’s in the middle of the left-hand page, visually hidden below the ad from everyone else. I hope this is useful.