Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Placing Magazine Ads

When a full-page color ad in a major national magazine costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, you may wonder why your small business should even bother considering magazine advertising. The reason is that thousands of special-interest, small-circulation (and vastly more affordable) magazines exist, and many of the best-known magazines print regional or even city editions in which you can place an ad for a fraction of the full-edition price.

The great ad flight to Craigslist and other online classified ad sites

Craigslist.org launched in 1995 and is now not only the largest classified site but also one of the most popular websites in the United States. Serving more than 700 local sites in 70 countries, Craigslist gets more than a billion page views annually. The offerings of Craigslist — and other online-ad sites, such as Monster.com — have desiccated much of the income stream of newspaper classified departments, not intentionally but by the benefits they offer anyone selling anything to tech-savvy buyers.

On Craigslist, posting ads is free, except for job posts in select market areas, brokered apartment rentals in New York, and therapeutic services throughout the United States. Plus, posting ads is immediate, user-friendly, and customizable, with the option of including photos and messages that link to your website, which boosts the search ranking of the page your ad points to while also providing ad readers the information they need to self-qualify their ...