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Ideas/Section-1
Almost 10 years ago I wrote a book entitled
"Marketing Your Own Adsheet to Make Money". In this book,
I advised people to paste-up their customers' ads on a 8½x11"
sheet of paper, then send the whole sheet to a tabloid publisher
to run at the 8½x11" advertising rate thereby saving
money on their printing and mailing expense.
This idea was great advice 10 years ago
because only about 50 or less adsheets existed within a particular
market. However, today, there are literally 100's, if not 1,000's
of different adsheets. Many of them come and go overnight. And the
ones that stay around and use this old method will destroy tabloid
publishers without even realizing it.
Let's take an example to help you understand
what I mean. Suppose that Sue publishes a tabloid that is printed
and mailed to a 5,000 circulation. Let's assume that each tabloid
page costs Sue $30 in overhead expense (printing, paste-up time,
mailing.) Sue has advertising rates of $12 per 1" of ad space
or $80 for an 8½x11" circular.
Now, Lori has an adsheet that is also circulated
to 5,000 and she charges only $7 per 1" of space. She sells
24 inches of ad space at $7 per inch for a total income of $168.
She pays Sue (the tabloid publisher) $80 for an 8½x11"
circular and pockets $88 profit.
So, now Lori is getting all the orders.
It won't take long before all the higher-priced adsheet publishers
stop sending their adsheet to Sue's tabloid and Sue feels the effect
of the loss of income.
Besides, why should they keep sending their
adsheet to Sue's tabloid? They are not making a dime because all
the other adsheet publishers in the same issue are underbidding
them. In the end, Sue's tabloid is destroyed and she goes out of
business. And the sad part is that Sue never realized the problem
existed.
It would seem the simple solution to this
problem is for tabloid publishers to not allow adsheets to be printed
in their publications. But that is easier said than done. How many
people could give up a $1,200 or more per month income for their
tabloid that is based on the sales from adsheet publishers? They
have painted themselves in a corner with no way out.
But there is a way to solve this dilemma
without any loss of income. All you have to do is not run adsheets
as one single 8½x11. Instead, cut the ads apart and run them
throughout the tabloid instead of all bunched up in one location.
Here are the advantages to doing this:
>The actual customer who paid to advertise
in the adsheet will get a better response since their ads are not
mixed in with 24 or more other ads in the same location.
>The adsheet publisher can run their
masthead as a separate advertisement, thereby still generating an
income for their particular adsheet. This way, lots of different
adsheet publishers can advertise in the same tabloid with different
rates eliminating competition with each other.
>The adsheet publisher will also still
get their price break. If they pay Sue $80 for an 8½x11"
adsheet, the ad space is only costing them $2.96 per inch, compared
to the $12 per inch that Sue normally charges.
>Sue's tabloid still makes money. In
fact, she makes a good steady income since she eliminated the unnecessary
competition between her adsheet publishers.
But even with all this spelled out in black
and white, some of you out there will still not accept this method.
Why? Because you are probably from the old mail order school of
doing things (or were taught by people who were from the old mail
order school of doing things.) You would rather keep doing what
you have been doing for the past 20 years although you see no evidence
of making more money. People like you, I'm sorry to say, cannot
see the forest for the trees.
However, you have to realize that what
worked 30, 20, 10 or even 5 years ago may not necessarily work today.
That's because there are more homebased businesses and more people
living on the planet Earth than ever in recorded history. This fact
alone changes the various ways of marketing. Besides the general
buying public are of a different mindset than they were 5 years
ago. Just look around you.
So, because of this on factor, we all have
to bend and make changes in our business or we will never grow and
prosper. Always remember that marketing (finding ways to sell a
product or service) is a PEOPLE business. You have to change with
them to supply their wants and needs.
But for those of you who are happy with
barely getting by with your publication, forget everything you just
read. It would take effort for you to make changes and I certainly
wouldn't want to ask you to do something so strenuous!
At this stage of the game, everyone is
happy. Lori made a $88 profit from her adsheet and Sue made a $50
profit from her tabloid. But did she? Let's see what happens when
Sue's tabloid is published:
Lester receives a copy of Sue's tabloid
and he really likes it. He plans to advertise. However, he notices
that he can send Lori his advertisement for her adsheet and pay
only $7 instead of sending it to Sue and paying $12. Which person
do you think Lester will order from? Lori, of course! Sue just lost
a $12 sale!!
Over a period of a few months, Sue notices
her income for the tabloid dropping significantly. On the surface,
she doesn't suspect that Lori's adsheet is the problem. All she
knows is that Lori keeps sending her a monthly adsheet, which is
guaranteed money she can depend on. Sue would never think of eliminating
Lori's adsheet since she is a repeat customer.
Sue then assumes that it is to her benefit
to offer her tabloid's $80 per 8½x11" advertising rates
to more adsheet publishers and markets to publishers in this fashion.
In a few months, Sue has 15 different adsheet publishers running
their full-page adsheets in her tabloid. That's a monthly income
of $1,200 for Sue and therefore she finally feels she has been successful
in her marketing.
But guess what? When Lester receives Sue's
tabloid this time, he noticed that Frank was running an adsheet
with rates of $5 per 5,000 circulation. Rather than send his money
to Lori's adsheet this month, he sends it to Frank.
In the next issue, Tony comes along and
underbids Frank by advertising a 1" ad to a 5,000 circulation
for only $4. Lester keeps getting cheaper advertising while all
the publishers are losing money.
Pretty soon, Sue's tabloid is filled with
nothing but page after page of adsheets. Each one is in direct competition
with each other due to the different advertising rates for each
adsheet. The person with the lowest priced advertising rates gets
