Choosing the Right Advertising Outlet By Andrew Michaels At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

"If customers aren’t finding your business, it may be that you’re choosing the wrong media outlets for your advertising. People look in certain places for information on products and services, like Google to search for information about a product and other Internet sites, like Epinions.com to search for other user opinions about a product.

So, are you taking advantage of the places most consumers look for guidance on available products? Here are a few of your best options:

Magazines

Obviously, magazines are huge vehicles for advertising. Of course, they are also very expensive. A front or back cover can run you tens of thousands of dollars for just one issue! But, there are more cost-effective options in the back of magazines that are designated for small print ads that look something like newspaper classifieds. These ads are clustered under a special heading so that people can easily find the category of product or service they need.

Magazines are targeted toward every niche audience these days, so seeking out the ones that share your target market shouldn’t be too hard – you just need to do a little research.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is a very effective medium for getting the word out. Brochures, postcards, letters, flyers, etc. – there are so many different kinds of direct mail you can send out that you won’t seem annoyingly repetitive because you’ll have a different type of vehicle for each message. Be sure to use the area around the label printing wisely because people usually look at the address label to see who the postcard or brochure is addressed to, even if they end up throwing it out.

Newspapers

Newspapers are ranked second after Yellow Pages in the largest percentage of advertising dollars spent in 2003. Classified ads are among the most hard-working advertising vehicles in the nation.

Newspapers are great for advertising because many are broken into sections – home, business, leisure and more – so your advertising is more targeted. Many also publish special guides throughout the year that you can advertise in on a one-time basis. The Washington Post publishes a special dining guide seasonally that readers will keep and use again and again to find their right dining options.

Yellow Pages

The Yellow Pages claims the largest percentage of small- to medium-sized business advertising spent in the nation – 46%. That’s almost half the ad dollars spent in a year, or $11 billion. This is because they are easy to use, and are sent to consumers at no cost to them. It’s also easy to look up categories and find exactly what you’re looking for.

Paid Internet Searches

Google Adwords is the most popular option when it comes to paid internet searches, and all the search engines offer some kind of paid Internet search. More than 100 million Americans searched for products and services online last year, according to the Dieringer Research Group. With these types of searches, you select keywords that are related to your product, and when someone searches for that keyword, your ad shows up on the results page. This option can drive a lot of business to your Web site and encourages sell-through.

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