28Aug

What are the numbers? We’ll be happy to tell you.

Ask any magazine or newspaper publisher how many copies they print AND how many copies are left over on average, and watch the tap dancing begin.

Some won’t even tell you how many copies they print.

That alone amazes me. When you purchase print ads in a publication, you are paying for so many copies. Two-Lane Livin’, for example, prints 15,000 copies. When you purchase ads from us, you are buying 15,000 copies of a certain size ad. If you buy a business card size ad, you are paying .002 cents per ad. That’s about the average for all of our ads.

But how many copies does The Trader’s Guide print? How many copies does WV Living print? Those numbers should, in my humble opinion, be included on their rate sheets – but they’re not. How does a person know exactly what they are buying?

(Just so you know, The Trader’s Guide prints 8,000 copies. I don’t know how many WV Living prints.)

Now, I’m not knocking those two publications. I actually drool over the beauty and full color of WV Living. It’s beautiful and very well done. I have yet to miss a copy. But I just can’t grasp not telling clients exactly what they are buying…

If your print publisher does tell you how many they print – then ask them how many copies, on average, they have left over. It makes a difference you know, in the value of your ads.

I’ve met publishers who don’t even know those numbers.

But I haven’t met a single one who knows the numbers and shares those numbers with their clients.

Let’s say, for example, you purchase a business card ad from The Trader’s Guide for $19. That’s also .002 per ad. But, if they only sell 6,000 of 8,000 copies, only 6,000 copies of your ad were seen. Then you are paying .003 per ad.

Sure, in the long run, it only totals about fifteen cents a year in a weekly publication, but that’s not really the point.

The point is, the clients really have no idea what they’re paying for.

When I see Trader’s Guides in the recycling bin at the recycling center I think, “well, there’s several hundred ads no one ever saw.”

It’s money wasted. Paper wasted. Ink, wasted.

At least they recycle.

Of course, some people buy ads for the image and prestige, not the actual numbers. (That’s why a business card ad, $40 in Two-Lane Livin’, will cost you $145 in Country Roads Journal. In WV Living, a similar size ad costs at least $350. Those full color glossy pages ARE really nice.) The audiences are different. One might reach your target market while another won’t. There are many different reasons to buy ads in different publications, and Two-Lane Livin’ is not the outlet for every business.

But, I’m the kind of person who wants to know what I’m buying, and I want to get my money’s worth.

If you are the same, then let me tell you:

We print 15,000 copies of  Two-Lane Livin’ every month, and we circulate them in over 500 distribution locations in 16 counties.

How many end up in the trash, recycling bin, or locked away in storage?

None.