How to Buy Newspaper Advertising at a Huge Discount

Why would you ever pay list price for newspaper advertising space when most newspaper advertising rates are negotiable?  Some are highly negotiable.  Here are 5 ways to get better discount newspaper advertising rates.

1. Newspaper classified advertising.
If you are running a statewide classified newspaper advertising campaign there are state newspaper associations that offer great rates on almost all the papers in your state.  Discount newspaper advertising rates may be 30% – 50% – 70% off list, if you buy classified advertising through your state newspaper association.  Yes, they’re that much cheaper.

State Associations can be found online, in directories, and in “The Intelligent Testing System” – a program that offers specific reference data on classified advertising.  It’s a compilation database of names, addresses, and phone numbers of all the state newspaper associations in the U.S., along with all the major national classified ad buying associations. It also includes the specific discount rates for virtually every local paper published in the United States.

If you want to learn how to place 100 to 10,000 classified ads nationwide with a single phone call at highly discounted rates, The Intelligent Testing System is the ultimate program on classified ads. You’ll see exactly  where to buy cheap newspaper advertising and how to purchase newspaper classified advertising in bulk at a discount.

2. Local Newspaper Advertising.
Discount advertising rates abound in local newspaper advertising if you know how to ask.  If you’re just buying one ad one time it’s pretty hard to get cheap newspaper advertising rates.  But if you are a local retailer, all your ads are going to be local advertising.

And chances are great that you’re placing more than just the single ad, so you have A) good credibility and B) great negotiating power – so you need to C) ask for a discount for all local ads your print advertisement campaign.

Everyone likes a winning ad – advertisers love it because it consistently brings in business, the papers love it because if a client’s retail print advertising is successful, they’ll run it more frequently – perhaps forever.  So ask for a discount for your print advertising rates, and here’s the way you go about it.

3. Here’s how to politely ask for a discount newspaper advertisement rate:  Ask for

· 2 ads for the cost of 1 (buy one get one free special)

· Ask for a larger ad at a smaller ad price

· Buy 2 get one FREE rate

· Mail Order Rate

· Multiple Insertion Rate

· Contact Rate (for longer insertion contracts)

· Remnant Space Rate

4. Send a press release with every ad you place.
This doubles your exposure and with the successful placement of your press release, your credibility goes up – way, way up.

Remember, newspaper editors love press releases.  They have a complete newspaper to fill up every day (every week for weekly papers) and writing it all themselves is tough.  Newspaper advertising needs support from the editorial, and if you write your press release correctly you’ll be providing this editorial support.  See our 85-page chapter on writing press releases in the book, “How To Market a Product For Under $500.”

5.  Ask your local paper for “remnant space.”
If placing national ads, use a remnant space buying service – there are several great ones around, and are shown in the book “Direct Marketing Strategies.”

“Remnant space” is the term that makes all newspaper and magazine publishers cringe.

Also called “Standby space,” this is the unsold part of the newspaper left over just before the newspaper goes to press.  Like an empty seat on an airplane when the door is closing, newspaper advertising space is a perishable commodity.

The newspaper publisher can’t leave it blank – it would appear as a white hole in a gray page of print, so sometimes they’ll run a house ad for the newspaper, or sometimes a free ad for a charity like the United Way.  But most times it’s sold, and anything paid for it is better revenue than a non-paid space.  This can mean cheap and highly discounted newspaper advertising space ads for you.

Remnant ad space is always sold late in the selling cycle, at the last closing moments before the printing process.  You won’t know if your remnant space ad made it into the paper until the last second, but the steep discounts make it worth the wait.

Discount newspaper advertising rates can be as high as 80% off list.  That’s right, you can get cheap newspaper advertising space by paying 20¢ on the dollar by asking for “remnant space” or “standby space.” For the complete article on how to buy discount newspaper space please read the book, Uncommon Marketing Techniques, or click through to our website as sometimes we feature this article in our rotating article presentations.

Regardless of the price you pay for your newspaper advertising rates, always ask for great placement of your ad in the FRONT of the paper, on the TOP of the page (called above the fold) and flush right – on the RIGHT HAND (outside position) of the RIGHT hand page.  This is the highest visibility spot in the paper.  Ads that are in the lower part of the paper or buried in the gutter are much lower visibility and lose effectiveness from this poor placement.

You need to ask for this “FFRH” (Far Forward Right Hand” position above the fold spot before you say “yes” to the final placing of your ad.  Once you say yes to placing your newspaper ad, you don’t have any further negotiating power.  Even highly discount print advertising rates won’t help if your ad isn’t seen because it’s in the left hand page gutter – visually buried under everyone else’s ad. Hope this is helpful.

– Jeffrey