Advertisements: Creating off-the-page promotions; Coupons: how a simple change can lift revenue by 43%; Testing vs tweaking: how clever marketers lift profitability; Career quiz: are you a publisher, marketer or business person? Advertisements: why you don’t see publishers advertising; Mass mailings: creating a more responsive promotion; Case studies: Windsor Products; Your Talking Cat; Master Your Computer in Just 2 Hours; Vinegar, Honey & Garlic—nature’s secret weapons; AARP

Dear Colleague,

You can only reach as far as your ambitions will let you.

Ambition dictates all kinds of professional success. If you want to rise high you must have an ambitious agenda.

The first step is to decide what you are and where you want to end up: are you primarily a publisher, marketer or business person? There are big differences. You can be a good publisher, for example, but know little about marketing or how to run a business.

To find out, answer two questions. You’ll find them useful to discover if you are ready to run a business. If you like the idea of being a director or owner of a company then get your pen ready because an able business person or marketer will get the answers right away.

The quiz isn’t compulsory. I am just using the questions as a way to introduce our article on how to sell products through advertising in the national press. Although it’s a simple quiz it strikes at the heart of our trade, so the answers deserve a bit of thought.

Which of the following is the most, and which is the least, important? Please tick the one you regard as most important, then put a cross against the least important:

1.         A good product

2.         Good ad copy

3.         Good media buying

4.         Low operating costs

5.         Detailed analysis of sales data

The answers are in this issue.

Selling products through advertisements

You will find the answers to the questions below in the interview with John Whalley, managing director of Windsor Products. Windsor sells through advertising in the national press. As you read on, you’ll pick up some great lessons from how it does business:

1.       How to increase revenue by up to 43% without incurring any extra promotional costs

2.       Ways to turn a loss-making advertisement into profit

3.       The importance of copywriting, cost control and analysis: why your product takes fifth place to other more important factors

So there is the answer to the second part of the question: your product is least important and there should be a cross against it. You’ll find a comprehensive answer to the first part of the question below. It reveals:

Publishing is a business like any other. We may have a passion for distributing the written word, but unless we have sound commercial instincts we can forget about ever running a successful company

Selling publications off the page is a really tough job and few can do it. You rarely see any publishers running ads today, certainly not mainstream ones

Good luck!

Peter Hobday

Editor

Members-only section Subscriptions Strategy issue 65 >>>