I’m still shaking my head over a meeting with a trade-pub ad sales rep last week. A big part of her pitch was the results from subscriber surveys. A simple question: which of these companies have you heard of? One of the companies on the list is a competitor, so I have a pretty good idea how much print advertising they’ve done. After years of advertising on a fairly regular basis, their awareness level is less than 10%. With some back-of-the-envelope calculations I’m estimating that they spent at least $9, and possibly more than $18 per person who’d check a box saying “I’ve heard of this company”. That’s not a lead, that’s a modicum of brand awareness. Given their price point, they’d have to do the impossible and convert as many as 1 out of 28 of the barely aware into paying customers to just cover their costs.
The ad sales rep pointed to their ramp in awareness as a selling point. I didn’t have the heart to point out the mathematical errors in her assumptions.
No thanks, we won’t buy print ads.
