Unlike newspapers, where lots of ads can be run in succession to create frequency for your campaign, magazines, with their once per week or month publishing cycle, are better suited to reach out to a large audience and create awareness or an issue or corporate identity. In short they are more about image than response.  Magazines are also highly targeted vehicles in that each “book” aims for a specific group of readers with similar interests (e.g. news magazines, feature magazines, financial magazines, industry or trade magazines, etc.) and point of view.

So while finding the right magazine to reach your target is relatively easy, creating the appropriate ad is neither easy or cheap. Because they have a longer shelf-life and greater pass around rate, magazine “creative” deserves special attention and that can translate to higher production costs. The good news is that the “space” in the magazines is still a good bargain and getting better as demand is down in almost  all categories.

An LUC strategist can help you not only target the best books for your campaign based on “interest” but based on cost and efficiency. Let us help you narrow down the choices with our extensive magazine database.

Newspapers offer the advantage of local or national/regional coverage and the choice boils down to what coverage does your campaign require and at what cost. If your objective is to move a group of local citizens to action (write the congressman, attend an event, etc) then local print is your best bet.  If you are about “branding” your issue or affecting the national discussion in some way then the “national” newspapers (USA Today, Wall Street Journal, NY Times, etc) are the way to go.

Newspaper advertising is rapid (turnaround in a couple of days) and can be date specific, but it is media with a very limited “shelf-life.” So the impact of the ad today will be forgotten when tomorrow it lines the kitty box or wraps the fish.

For more on the strategy and cost of newspaper advertising give us a call.