er, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's reaFew things are as uncertain to a new home business owner as where, when and how to buy advertising. If you've started to research your advertising options you are already painfully aware of the costs involved. Costs that can, literally, put you out of business if not controlled. Yet, without some form of regular, effective advertising your business can stagnate and starve to death. How do you know what is right for you? In this article we'll look at some options, and some ways to measure effectiveness, that should keep you in the money and out of trouble.

Will Your Customer's See Your Ad?

Advertising is sold based on its reach. If a newspaper, for instance, has a circulation of 100,000 subscribers, ad space will be considerably more expensive than a newspaper with a circulation of 10,000 subscribers. The first reaches ten times more people. Reach can be confusing, however, and it is more accurately an indicator of selling price to the publisher than anything else. As the buyer you must first consider how closely the demographic profile of the publication's readers matches that of your customer before you worry about the reach.

Demographic profile may seem like a complicated concept. In this case it simply means the "people" (demos=Greek for people) characteristics of that publication's subscribers. Their income, age, gender, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's rea

business can stagnate and starve to death. How do you know what is right for you? In this article we'll look at some options, and some ways to measure effectiveness, that should keep you in the money and out of trouble.

Will Your Customer's See Your Ad?

Advertising is sold based on its reach. If a newspaper, for instance, has a circulation of 100,000 subscribers, ad space will be considerably more expensive than a newspaper with a circulation of 10,000 subscribers. The first reaches ten times more people. Reach can be confusing, however, and it is more accurately an indicator of selling price to the publisher than anything else. As the buyer you must first consider how closely the demographic profile of the publication's readers matches that of your customer before you worry about the reach.

Demographic profile may seem like a complicated concept. In this case it simply means the "people" (demos=Greek for people) characteristics of that publication's subscribers. Their income, age, gender, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's rea

has a circulation of 100,000 subscribers, ad space will be considerably more expensive than a newspaper with a circulation of 10,000 subscribers. The first reaches ten times more people. Reach can be confusing, however, and it is more accurately an indicator of selling price to the publisher than anything else. As the buyer you must first consider how closely the demographic profile of the publication's readers matches that of your customer before you worry about the reach.

Demographic profile may seem like a complicated concept. In this case it simply means the "people" (demos=Greek for people) characteristics of that publication's subscribers. Their income, age, gender, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's rea

consider how closely the demographic profile of the publication's readers matches that of your customer before you worry about the reach.

Demographic profile may seem like a complicated concept. In this case it simply means the "people" (demos=Greek for people) characteristics of that publication's subscribers. Their income, age, gender, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's rea

er, and education levels to name a few of the common demographics measured. Most first class publications gather this information and make it available as part of their sales presentation. Smaller, or less professional publications may have incomplete, or even no, data. If you can't get, or determine, the demographics of a publication's readership its probably a good idea to pass on it as an advertising medium for your home business.

Cheap Isn't Necessarily Inexpensive

Often new home business owners see cheap advertising, especially in smaller publications like community newspapers, or association newsletters, and think its a good buy when compared to ad space in larger publications. While the two publications in question may look like apples and oranges, there is a way to convert the apples to oranges and make a reasonable comparison. Simply divide the cost of the advertisement by the total number of projected readers. This will give you a "cost per view" of your ad in each publication.

Here is a simple example of the conversion at work. The Daily - circulation 100,000 -offers you a business card size ad, for one week, at $1000. The Community Weekly - Circulation 5,000 - offers you the same size ad, for one issue, at $50. Which is least expensive?

If you divide the $1000 cost of The Daily's ad by 500,000 (thats 100,000 circulation times the 5 days it will run), you get a projected cost of $.002 per view. If you divide the Community Weekly's cost of $50 by the 5,000 circulation (the ad runs once - its a weekly) you get a cost of $.01 per view. The $50 ad is actually five times more expensive.

This is a hypothetical example, of course. There are