The perils of buying advertising space

The real cost of advertising can be elusive. For example: a client purchased a magazine advert costing £900.

Advice from a salesperson suggested this would lead to profit as each issue of the magazine had a circulation of 100,000 for a month and would remain in doctors / dentists / etc waiting rooms across the country long after publication.

This client was a beauty parlour, the typical price of a sale was £15 for ear piercings. To cover the advert cost, 60 (£900 cost / £15 sale) new clients would have to visit. Not too many. However, that does not include the costs of the sale (rent, time, materials, plus our design time), only profit goes to cover the cost of the advert.

With each new customer bringing £2 profit 450 new customers (15 a day for a month) would need to purchase ear piercings JUST for the cost of the advert. No profit.

For an equivalent cost they could have had a simple website built with web hosting for 20 years or had a brochure designed, printed and distributed.

While this example is an extreme, that decision contrbuted to the business no longer being profitable.

Advertising can and does work, we just like too add up the facts and figures and make sure it's the right choice for you before including the invoice for our design services.