Magazine advertising remains a proven, time-tested medium for companies big or small to spread the word about their business and gain new customers. However, if you plan on using this medium to advertise your service or product, there are a few things you should know first.
Nearly every magazine relies on advertisers to purchase ad placements in order to generate revenue. Sure, they may sell x amount of yearly or quarterly subscriptions, but the main revenue for most magazine companies comes from advertisers buying their ad space. Typically they will offer different advertising sizes, such as full-page, half-page and a variety of different blocks. As you may expect, the larger the size of the ad space, the more expensive it’s going to be. Advertisers have other options to choose from as well, such as the run-length of the ad and different targeting features.
The real factor for determining the success of a magazine ad is how well it’s targeted to the demographic of the magazines readers. Magazines usually cover a specific “niche” or subject and once you determine what demographic (age, gender, interests, etc) is interested in that subject; you can compare it to the demographic associated with your ad. For example, the demographic of an outdoor fishing and magazine will likely be men who are interested in sports and outdoors. Therefore, an ad which does well with demographic, such as fishing and hunting supplies will likely perform well.
One of the greatest advantages to using magazine printing as an advertising medium is the fact that you are allowed to use bold, eye-catching graphic images. You have to remember, people reading magazines often flip through them without reading every word on the page. With magazine advertising, you are given the freedom to create a visually-striking ad that will grab the readers’ attention. Even subtle changes in ads graphic can make a huge difference in the impact of the ad. If you’re a small company who’s trying to purchase ad space, you’ll likely want to hire a professional creative design team to help produce such ads.
Another effective method for magazine advertising is to create an ad that looks similar to the articles in the magazine. While some of the magazine companies may have rules or limitations on this, advertisers have had much success by creating ads using this method. The reader will flip through the pages and come upon an ad resembling an article, which they will continue reading without knowing it’s an advertisement.
No matter what type of ad you create, you’ll want to gather data on how they perform. In the world of advertising, there’s always room for improvement, and by gathering data on your ads, you can see which ones are more engaging than others.
Buying magazine ad space remains a solid and effective way of advertising. However, too many companies don’t spend the time to research and target their demographics, and as such their ads fail at generating new customers.
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