How To Save Money On Printed Media Advertising To Get A Big Discount Off The Rate Card
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How To Save Money On Printed Media Advertising To Get A Big Discount Off The Rate Card – Video Transcript
Hello its Neil Ball, your online marketing coach from www.workwithNeilBall.com.
I am going to talk about how to buy advertising space in traditional media. I am going to tell the secret of how to save money on all of your advertising in printed media, and at the end of this video, I am tell you an absolutely gangster way of saving money that the publishers of printed media hate but can’t resist, and they will wish you never knew about it.
Right, so before I get started, why should you listen to me? I used to have a mail order business, and I would spend between £20,000 and £30,000 a month on printed media, or in dollars speak, that is probably about up to $50,000 per month, on printed media in many national publications of magazines and local newspapers, and this spend was based on not on rate card, but on the rate I actually paid. So It is based on the discounted prices that I was getting at the time.
When my business started it really could not afford to do any of this type of advertising, which made me learn the art that I am about to share with you. The effectiveness of the following will vary from publication to publication, depending on how popular that publication is.
There are a few rules that you need to abide by to get cheap advertising. First of all you never ever pay rate card. The Rate card is for people who are spending other people’s money.
You must never pay rate card, because the rate card has always got a margin built in to it for advertising agencies to offer a discount or be offered a discount. So that they can charge the people that advertise with them the rate card and make it look as if they are not making any money, and there is always room for further negotiation built into the rate card. So that is the first rule really that you must stick to.
The second rule is that you never ever buy advertising. This one tip alone will save you a fortune. Now you are probably thinking, well of course it will save me money, but how will I advertise if I never buy any advertising? Well, here is what I mean, you can either buy advertising, where you call a publication and book and buy space or you get them to sell advertising to you.
If you do this you will spend a lot less money. So to do this, to get the publication to sell to you requires that you plan a head a little bit. This won’t work of course if it is November and you try to advertise in the December edition of a monthly publication, because you have just not got time.
To make this work you need to contact the publication that you want to advertise in, possibly several months before you want to advertise with them, depending on the lead time of the type of publication that you have got and that you are going in. Obviously, a local paper has a much shorter lead time than a magazine. The next step is like playing Poker and you must never reveal your hand. I will talk briefly about the psychology of this situation, well it is very brief but you have got to remember that virtually all printed media is under increasing pressure from online media and they are losing advertisers every year. What this means is that they are desperate to fill the space and find new advertisers to try and plug the loss.
Also the sales reps are more than likely get paid a bonus for getting new advertisers, so what you need to do is, you need to talk to the sale rep or the sales person, you don’t tell them what you are doing, so you don’t tell them that you are going to want to advertise in several months. What you do is, you let them think you are looking to place an advert now but you are looking for a deal.
You need to let them offer a discount rather than you suggest one. You say something like ‘What is you absolute best offer you can offer for me?’ Don’t let them know what your price is or what you want to pay at this point. But say something like, you want to try the magazine for the first time, or the publication for the first time, so you really do need the absolute best price, because that is going to give you, it is going to put you in a position where you are able to judge the success of it much better. The higher they charge you remember, the more money you are going to have to make. So, it is in your interest to get the lowest prices. It is in their interests for you to see it as a success. So you come back for more. So you need to sell that to them to some extent. When you are given the price, you need to realise that it will not be the best that they can give, even though they will claim it is.
The next thing you need to do is, you need to be cool about the offer and say you need to think about it. If you have a business partner or other director or manager or someone else, you can possibly use them in your excuse and say something like ‘you need to run it past them first’, and then tell them to call you back in a tomorrow.
This will get the sales rep excited and keen because they will think there is a deal in the making and they will call you the next day. When they call back, you need to then say that the price isn’t low enough, how much more can they cut off the price?
They will claim they can’t cut any more off, they have given you the lowest price. They might even say, you have got the lowest price in the publication. These are all standard lines that they will hit you with. We’ve heard it all before, well I have certainly heard it, I’m sure you have. What you really need to do is sense this position, because it comes with experience.
But you need to remember that they want to sell to you more than you want to buy at this point because you are not ready to advertise yet. Even though the rep thinks you are, you are not. Now that puts you in a great position because sometimes when you have a conversation with somebody you can sense a situation and if the person on the other end of the phone, can sense that you are cool about the situation, you are not desperate, they are more likely to try harder. And it something that you are not lying about because it is the truth. You are not going to be going ahead straight away, even though they don’t know that, but you are being cool about the price so you are disguising the fact that you are not doing it now, the fact that the price isn’t good enough. So whatever you do, don’t let them know even at this point, the price that you want to pay, and thank them for their time and ask them to give you a call when they have a more sensible price.
And you can be a bit cheeky about it, get a bit of a banter going and it usually works quite well. Hopefully you will find that the rep, if they are any good, what they will do at this point is call you back at some point. And what you need to do then, is speak to them and be pleasant but hold out. Don’t give anything away.
Remember that they also have to justify their time. They are not selling, so effectively they have to be telling, so they have probably got some kind of call sheet to call people and they have got to report an outcome and the likelihood of getting an advertising slot booked with them. So, if you talk to them, you re going to be unlike most people because they are probably not going to talk to the, They are going to avoid them and not answer the phone or make excuses. So from time to time talk to them, sometimes be too busy and just continue to, string them along for a time, and eventually they will probably slice some more of the price. But still hold out and what you need to do before you get to about a month before you need to place the advert, speak to them and offer half of the best price that they have ever offered.
You probably think this is incredibly cheeky, but I have done this and it is amazing and if you do it you will be surprised, you will go away and they will take you seriously. And even if they don’t, you are planting a seed in their mind. They know, they tell you they have offered you the lowest price. But they know they have not offered you the lowest price. So they know they can go lower if they can and they want the deal. So they will go and find a way of getting that deal. So what will probably happen is they won’t accept it but that is okay.
When they refuse, again you are going to ask them, ‘well how close can you get to the price?’ They will probably get a bit closer. The might knock another percentage off. And again, at this point you are still going to refuse them. It’s a bit like playing hard to get this. Now here is where it gets a bit more interesting, about 2 weeks before you need to place the advert, allowing for a bit of lead time for one final crack. Tell them you are planning a campaign in about two weeks, and can they get any closer to your offer? And again, they may or may not give a little more, but still don’t commit. This is going to set a point in time for you, or a price for you which you are now going to use. Now this is the killer thing, the next thing that is going to happen, is going to get you some discount. So the next thing that you need to do to get a lower price, is take the lowest price, is take the lowest price that you have got at this point, subtract off it 20 – 30% I would say 30% but you might not feel that cheeky. And next what you need to do is write a cheque out, a good old fashioned cheque for that amount of money and send them a written order to the rep. What you must do is not tell them that you are going to do this and the order should say something like ‘please find enclosed an order for the advertising and specify what it is and when you want it and where you want it placed.
If you are planning a campaign over a few publications over a period of time. To make it even more tempting for them, and because you are really showing them a commitment, give them post-dated cheques for each publication that you are going to advertise in. In that period of time. So say you are doing six weeks of advertising, give them a cheque post-dated for that six week period. For each week that you are going to advertise. Now that puts you in a really good position because remember most people will get credit, you are having to forego your credit to get this but they have got certainty of payment but they have got an order in their hand.
Now that is very powerful, because you have shown an incredible commitment. And it is something that normally they would not come across. And it really does provide you with the ability to get the price reduced, so you get to the price that you really want to pay.
So, it is a question of really holding out to this point and what you will find is that when the rep receives the order, undoubtedly, they will call you, they will probably think you have made a mistake. You will say you haven’t and ask them, do they want the order. When they say the amount is too low and it is below what anyone else has ever paid. And you just say to them ‘look I am prepared to place this advert and I have shown commitment and if you do not want the order, send it back to me.’ And what you will find at that point is, they may well turn round to you and say ‘leave it with me’ and what will probably happen is somewhere in the back ground they will talk to their manager or director.
Virtually all of the time, you will get the deal. It is extremely unlikely that they will return the cheques to you. Or I found it is. So, what you need to do is, they will probably say something like, ‘they will do it this time, but next time you will have to pay more.’ And at that point you just do not commit. You just say well at this point you have no measure of the value of the advertising, because you have never advertised. So you do not know if that advertising is going to work for you. So, at that point you have got your deal and that is what matters. Now the next thing that you need to do because inevitably, once you start advertising with them, because I am sure you know, they will start ringing you up, you and ask you how your advertising is going and is it successful, and really what they are doing is they are feeling you out to see if they can get more money out of you. And obviously there is a bit of a balance here because if something is absolutely dire you are not going to keep advertising in it. But you do not have to tell them it was successful but if you have got an advert that just about breaks even, then for you, it justifies renewing the advertising, from their point of view it can’t justify them pushing the boundaries and asking for more money.
Because at that point you are going to turn around to them and say, ‘I am losing money’ at that point. And even if they ask you how well it is going, you are not going to tell them the truth, if it is successful. If it isn’t successful, it is very easy to tell them the truth and say it is not successful.
When the series of cheques run out, if you want to advertise more and repeat the process, then at this point, they will probably tell you, you can’t do that. You need to pay more or you need to do exactly the same. Just send them the order and let them get the order in their hand, and see what they do. The first time is always going to be the most difficult, because if they have done it once, it is very likely they will do it again. And you will find that eventually, you have established that rate, is the rate that you are going to advertise at, from then on.
During this process, you need to make sure that your preliminary working can actually get into the position where you do the advertising. Make sure that you discuss the size of advert that you are proposing to advertise in the position that you are proposing to advertise in. If you are advertising in a daily newspaper make sure you talk about the specific day that you propose to advertise in as well. Make sure that you have got everything set properly because it might be that in a publication, the Saturday edition sells a lot better than the Monday edition.
So if you are talking about the Monday edition, and then you do a switch to the Saturday edition, that is going to change things. It is useful to know what they charge on those other nights because, it gives your some idea of what they are prepared to go down to. So at least exploring that amount, at least see that using these simple techniques, it is almost like playing hard to get really. And by doing it, you are being sold to and that is really what you want, you have got to turn this around. Its not that you want to advertise with them, they want to sell you the space.
And once that happens, you will find that the negotiation, becomes a whole lot easier because they are trying to tempt you in, where as if you go in and ring them up and say I want an advertisement for tomorrow, you are not going to get that.
Now these techniques, I have often got advertising in publications that is up to 75% off the rate card in some cases. You are not always going to get that because it depends on the publication and the popularity of it. And also sometimes maybe the time of the year, but you need to try it and see what you can get. I now work on line, helping people escape the 9 to 5 by working from home on the internet either part time or full time. If you are interested in finding out how you can get a free video that explains how you can do the same. Then go to:-
www.WorkWIthNeilBall.com/TakeAction.
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Until next time,
Goodbye
To discover more about what the offer that I mentioned at the end of the video and to find out more about what I am doing now, and how you can escape the 9 to 5 click the button below.
How To Save Money On Printed Media Advertising To Get A Big Discount Off The Rate Card