Woodworker's Journal 1984-8-3, страница 9

you receive 100 orders over 3 one week period, and at your maximum production you can only make five per week.

You can have a great product at a great price, but if your magazine ad is lousy, the product won't sell. There just isn't room in this column to talk about the specifics of good ad design, although we can point out some important considerations. First of all, you're ad should catch the readers eye, no easy task when you consider a magazine may have hundreds of ads. You will also need to show the reader what your product looks like, so you'll need a good quality photograph or a professional looking rendering. The copy should clearly explain what the product is, its overall dimensions, the type of wood used, and any features that you feel would help sell it.

For more information on designing an ad, check your local library as there are a number of good books available. If you feel you need professional help, get in touch with an advertising agency.

Choosing the magazine (or magazines) you will advertise in is another important consideration. Many fall into the category of special interest magazines because they appeal to readers with like interests. For example, readers of Gourmet magazine like to cook, while those of Hot Rod magazine are interested in cars. Ideally, you want to advertise in magazines that have a readership that is most likely to be interested in your product. So if you're selling a set of hardwood cooking utensils, your ad might be successful in Gourmet. But the same ad in Hot Rod would probably do poorly.

How much will a magazine ad cost you? That depends on the size of your ad and the magazine you choose to run it in. Generally speaking, a magazine's ad rate is related to its circulation (number of subscribers). The bigger the circulation, the more you pay.

Let's say you're ad measures two columns wide by 3 in. high (that's called a six column inch ad) and you are going to place it in a magazine with a circulation of 300,000. A rate of $240 per column inch is a good average for a magazine of that size so we'll use that figure. At that rate your ad will cost $240 x 6 in. or $1440. That's for a one time insertion. Magazines with circulation of around one million may cost $400 per column inch, or $2400 for a 6 inch ad. For specific ad rate information, write to the magazine's advertising department and ask for a media kit.

Unfortunately there is no way to know just how well an ad will do. and few of us can afford to risk several hundred bucks on an unknown venture. If you're convinced you have a terrific product and a great ad, it's best to test the ad in a magazine with a small circulation and a correspondingly low ad rate. If it does well in a 50,000 circulation magazine, it stands to do well in a 500,000 circulation magazine that has a similar readership.

Before running an ad though, you can sometimes get a feel for how you might do by studying the ads for handcrafted wooden items in the various magazines that generally feature such ads. Note the ads that are repeated month after month—that's an indication that they are making money. If an ad runs only once, you can assume it did not do well.

In a short column like this, we've only been able to cover the highlights of mail-order selling. If you want to seriously consider this marketing approach, we suggest you make a point to read more about it. Your library will probably have at least one book on the subject. A particularly good one is titled More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Mail Order Advertising by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Prentice-Hall, Inc. VCwj

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