Cost of a small newspaper display ad????

[Jon99]

Any idea what the cost of a daily ad in a local newspaper would be, the paper serves a county of about 100,000.....

[ksland]

Hoooo, do I!
Let me tell you a story.....
I wanted to run a small display ad in our local newspaper for leaf cleanups (3x5"). After going through pricing I settled on running it for one week for $275. Figured that was a good deal. Well it started on saturday and sunday and monday came around with no ad! I called them and they told me the $275 was just for 1 day only! Forget that! I only received 1 call from that one day too. Right at prime time for leaf cleanups. After hearing this, I told them it was a misunderstanding and I didn't feel I was liable to pay. After receiving 3 invoices from them, which after each one I would call and get no human person to talk to about it, I finally got ahold of a supervisor and she gave me a 100% credit. The lady that took my ad made mucho mistakes and I actually just got the letter saying I would receive the credit today.

Here is the actual letter I received

[rkbrown]

Don't know if this will help, but we have a weekly paper here...probably circulates about 20-30,000. Cost is $50 for 4 weeks for business card sized ad in the services section.

[Jon99]

$275 a day???????? OUCH!!! Thats about how much I wanted to spend by running an ad in the Sunday paper for 3 or 4 weeks....

[ksland]

See my point! I was amazed! $275 a week (7 papers) Would be fine, but lets see...according to their calculations 7 days wouls run me....$2047.50! Sundays, as I found out later are 50% more than the standard $273!

[Arc Burn]

$325 for 13 weeks in a local pennysaver/county shopper type paper,the ad is 2x4 and the paper is published weekly,daily papers were ungodly expensive,this one seems to do the trick and $1300 for a year of ad time didn't seem to bad to me.You gotta keep your name in front of people all the time,never let them forget,i'm a self employed welder(dabble in lawn mowing,nothing like you guys but,)and need to drum up new business constantly,proper advertising is essential,assuming i do a job right the first time,there is not a whole lot of repeat business!

[Just Cut]

local buyers guide delivered once per week , Circulation 14000. 22.50 per month :)

[heygrassman]

Ask your newpaper rep about a Free Standing Insert (FSI). You can typically zone these where you want them to go and not go. FSI's are typically 8.5x11 and can be b/w or color. Insertion costs are minimal and you typcially can provide your own creative. The typical problem with newspaper in large circulation is spill and clutter. Spill is the area that you do not want to service and clutter is being mixed in with all the other ads.

[LB Landscaping]

Our local paper has a service directory in the classified section that is pretty reasonable. You can run 4 line ad for about 90 bucks for a month. I have gotten a ton of business from them.

[Hamons]

This is exactly what i have been working so hard on the last couple weeks. What ads to put where.


In Kansas City we have a large KC Star paper that has outrageous prices. Upwards of $500 for a small 10 columns inch ad about (5" x 3.5")

We have smaller local papers that are more reasonable -- but still high.

The Overland Park Sun has a circulation of around 162,000 and is a free paper that comes out once a week. it is a very popular paper with a good readership.

For a (5" x 3.5") ad it would be $800. However they have their circulation broken down into zones and you can get two zones -- about 40,000 people for 310.00. That is just one day though-- still very steep.

Another option is a small business card type ad for $40 for a minimum of 6 weeks (once a week).


Still another option is free monthly garden newspaper It has a circulation of about 12,000. A small ad in that paper runs about $200.

I haven't decided exactly which options to do.

Right now my plan is distributing 5000 flyers in the Overland Park Sun for 190.00 to promote Spring Aeration. With a concurrent ad in the The Journal Herald for $100.

Then run a 6 week business card ad in The Sun for $60 starting in April along wit an ad in the Garden Paper for about $200.

Total cost of Spring advertising = $500ish.

That considerably more than I did last year -- but you have to spend money to make money right?


______________

Jeff Hamons
Hamons Custom Landscaping
Overland Park, KS

[KLR]

care to name names??? who was the paper?? curious since we are both in eastern MA

[65hoss]

Jon, in the time it took you to type this thread you could have called the paper and got the exact numbers.

Everytime I do the newspaper ads I say never again. Then I somehow seem to try it again later that same year.

[Jon99]

I called the paper, they wouldn't give me their rates over the phone, only during an appointment... Its at that point that I became worried.. :)

[65hoss]

Originally posted by Jon99
I called the paper, they wouldn't give me their rates over the phone, only during an appointment... Its at that point that I became worried.. :)

Yep, you better be worried. High pressure with high price tag and high promises. No guarentees of course. Try a small ad in the classified section instead of the bigger ads. See if you get any response then maybe go to the appt.