Why should you consider buying short term press space when planning your next campaign? Despite declining circulations, press advertising is still relevant and a viable route to your customers. If you don’t believe us, just look through a Sunday newspaper or a glossy magazine and see all the big, big brands advertising in them.
Unlike the big, big brands most clients don’t have big, big budgets so how do you deliver a winning press campaign when your spend is more restricted?
The answer is short term or late space press buying. If you know what you’re doing and you can be flexible you can get your press schedule for a fraction of the “planning” cost.
However, lots of clients have reservations about short term buying so let’s bust some myths.
When you buy press short term you can’t plan your activity in advance
Absolutely you can. When we have a client that’s buying space on the short term market we plan a schedule in exactly the same way as you’d expect. All space and prices are laid out in advance for the client to sign off. The only difference is we often need to wait to confirm the booking. You also need to be prepared to be a little flexible. Dates might move a bit but we think it’s worth the payoff of rates up to 50% cheaper than standard.
You don’t get all the space you need
Short term space can never be guaranteed but we’ve got a good idea of what’s likely and what isn’t. If there is a question mark over a particular title or position, we’ll let you know. If it’s something that’s crucial you can always book that in advance and the rest of the schedule short term. A schedule bought entirely or mainly short term won’t fall short in delivering the number of ads you want.
All your ads will be in poor positions
Short term space is just the dregs that nobody else wants right? Nope. Short term space is just what hasn’t been sold for whatever reason. Perhaps another advertiser has had to pull out, maybe the paper has up-paged to accommodate editorial or possibly the space just isn’t in demand for that particular issue. Advertisers are fickle and there are a multitude of reasons why an advertising spot is available.
It’s not just classified space that becomes available as late space. We regularly get display sites offered to us at short term prices. Even cover sites and other premium positions come up more often than you might think. There’s no reason why a press schedule bought short term can’t have the standout of a much more expensive campaign.
Short term press buying can’t work for bigger companies
What if you need to get away a large number of ads? Does short term still stack up? Yes it does, many of our larger clients buy a significant proportion of press short term. If you’ve got an extensive schedule it might make sense to lay down activity in your core titles but there is still the opportunity to take advantage of lower late space rates to bolster your activity. Many of our bigger clients do very well from this “mix and match” approach.
Why doesn’t everyone buy short term?
Given all this, it seems like buying short term space is a no-brainer. So why doesn’t everyone do it? Quite simply, they can’t. Being able to buy short term relies on being able to supply advert artwork at very short notice which most agencies just aren’t geared up to do. Whereas a deadline for a new ad five days away would make many studios turn pale our creative team can often produce a new ad in hours or even minutes when required. Our studio is turning out ads of all sizes day in, day out a quick re-size or image change is all par for the course. The media owners know if they have a space we can fill it quickly so we’re often the first port of call when there is short term press space to be sold.
Short term press buying can cut your media costs and improve your ROI. Get in touch to find out more. If you want to find out why press is still an important part of the media mix read here.