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I’m ambivalent about advertising my business. I’m speaking of the traditional way–magazines, periodicals, etc. We have never gotten much of a return from having been in a glossy magazine.

When we first opened I would receive pleasant visits from young Ann Taylor-clad sales execs from different local periodicals. My desk was soon filled with heavy, glossy portfolios. In their slots were pages of carefully tabulated marketing stats citing demographics, distribution patterns, readership, etc..

“Our average issue gets read by more that one person”. That’s because it is either found at your doctor’s offices, who may be paying for one of the cosmetical procedure ads that pad the spaces of their pages. You may also find these local periodicals stacked around your local coffee house where they are perused by those waiting on their coffee house date.

The stats provided say that “we have readers that are savvy, sophisticated, well-traveled, educated enough to have extra dough to spare after being home-owners”. Well, as my shop is located in a revitalized area of the city, I would need that well-traveled, sophisticated reader to keep the same desire for exotic traveling in mind place as they cross the borders away from suburbia into the gentrified area where my indie shop is located.

It is understandable that stats, demographics, and distribution rates are all standards needed by those in publishing to prove they have done their homework and know their business. From this information, you the potential customer, must decide if you want to participate in placing an ad. Usually, your choice will be emotional. ” Oh, I love the magazine. I read it mysel” etc.

Never forget that the purpose of the ad is to bring yourself exposure and more customers. There is not one publication that can quarantee you more customers. Never forget this as you are being seduced by a sales rep into seeing your business through the eyes of their readership.
Rich Carraro of Clownbike, a top branding consultant, says that” no one is waiting for the latest issue of the newspaper to see what your new ad will look like”.

With this said, The Zen Merchant is preparing to place one 1/4 space ad in our immediate local neighborhood newspaper, The North Park News. They are one of the top community newspapers in the country. I believe that they distribute over 15,000 copies and their readership is 30,000.

This time we are promoting our one item that has brought us such unexpected,postitive feedback. Sales of the DVD,CD, and audio-tape of “The Secret” have been great. Our only form of effective advertisement has been through our customer list e-mail newsletter. Essentially, the success has been word-of-mouth.

Will a print ad in a local community paper with limited distribution create buzz? The only way to know this is to literally ask our customers how they found our shop.

We will keep you posted on the ad.