Internet Business Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

I have often thought about advertising my company in some of the bigger industry papers and newspapers around the country. I have thought about the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other large magazine publications such as Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, etc.

However, these companies sell half page ads for as much as $10,000.

I don’t know if it is a worthy investment, I’ve never done it, however $10k is a LOT of money.

Here is a little trick to try to get in your favorite publication at a highly discounted rate…

Stand-by Space. Unsold spots. Unsold Inventory. Whatever the publication wants to call it, this is you foot in the door to market your business on a large scale.

Here is how you will want to do it:

1. Contact the paper and explain that you are a new business and you are interested in marketing your business in their paper. Tell them you have you ad already written and ready to go.

2. Tell them you can’t afford the normal rates and would like to inquire about how they go about filling the unsold advertising inventory.

3. Try to find out what size of ad space usually is left unsold (a lot of times it will be the business card size).

4. Ask the publication if you can submit an ad that will run at a discounted rate when they have unsold advertising space.

This is a great way to generate some effective business marketing for your business!

Don’t forget to discuss the prices, which are somewhat negotiable with most publications, and then contact all of the publications you want to advertise in.

Ask them how often you ad is likely to show, and then set a maximum amount of times you want your ad to print based on your budget.

Get out there and get some discounted ad space!