Off line advertising is a great way to get an extra traffic boost, but it can be very expensive if you haven't done it before.... There is a 'fixed', published rate for advertising in newspapers and magazines. This is called
"rate-card" price. The 'rate-card' is a newspapers or magazines published "priced list" of space in publication concerned.
Does "rate-card" price reflect average price you could expect to pay in publication concerned? NO! It represents absolute highest, top dollar rate you could ever be insane enough to contemplate paying!! The "rate card" price for say, Daily Mirror would be £5000 price. The"rate card is a kind of wish list from newspapers. This is price they would like to get for all of their adverts.
This is what they consider space to be "really" worth. In practice, they hardly EVER get "rate card" for an advert, and most of time they get half of one-third of rate card prices.
However, if you are naive little bunny, and you telephone any national newspaper classified department and say to them; "Hey, look, I'm a rank amateur in this business, I was wondering if you could see your way clear to telling me how much my half-page advert would cost to insert in your excellent publication."
They will reply......
"Why certainly sir, our rate card for that advert is....let me see now....ah yes, £5000."
And you hop away thinking:- "Cripes! That's a bit steep. But if competition is paying that rate , then they must be really pulling in orders". So you stump up your five grand, and send your advert into paper. The conversation on classified desk goes something like this:-
Sue: "Here , John, you'll never guess what! You know that ACME publishing company I quoted five grand last week?"
John: "Yeah?"
Sue: "They've only gone and sent me a cheque and their advert!"
John: "What!!! You're pulling my plonker!"
Sue: (Laughing). No. Straight up. Look, here's cheque."
John: "Bank it, quick!"
Etc., Etc. You sit back and wait expectantly. The advert appears. The phones start ringing, first day's post arrives. The results look unpromising, but you reassure yourself that people need a bit of time to respond, and post is a bit slow etc. Next day you get about one third of post you expected. You put this down to a hold-up at sorting office. Next day you get about one tenth of post you expected. and following day you get about three letters! You start to become alarmed. Ten days later, you know you've blown about three grand. You hastily examine your advert. What's wrong with it? You look at competition. Hmm, they're offering a thirty day money-back guarantee and you're only offering fourteen. Damn! That must be it.
