For those of you who are unaware, Toronto is a massive metropolis – to the likes of New York or Chicago. When I was still working a shitty cubicle-bound day job, I would ride the subway to and from work on a daily basis, and during this ride it’s common, almost ritualistic, for the commuting gerbils to pick up a free copy of the local paper we have here called the Metro. Now more than often I go straight to the business/financial section, peruse through some classifieds and continue on to my daily horoscope on the second last page – and this is where I was struck with an “outside the box” moment…
Newspapers are slowly dying…
Let me get right to the point – every town, city and county has several free local newspapers which all survive off of the advertising revenue they receive. In a city like Toronto, the Metro paper gets into the hands of probably half the population (3 million +) which presents a great opportunity for some prime time, low cost, creative marketing.
I went onto the Metro website and took a peak at the advertising program they have, and some of the pricing options available, and found out that I could get a reasonably size block on the front page for less than $50/week – are you kidding me?? I found this to be absolutely scalable, and well worth a trial run.
Here’s the plan…
Grab 1 or 2 of the more popular free local newspapers in your city or town, go to the classifieds section (usually near the back) and you should find info for advertising – usually a phone number or email address. Find out the pricing info, as well as reach for the first 3 pages of the paper.
Find a strong performing CPA offer from Neverblueads or Copeac, keeping in mind seasonal and social factors that may cause certain offers to perform better. Here’s an example of what I mean: It’s Christmas time, so you could find a dating offer and put up an ad like “Don’t Spend The Holidays Alone – Hot New Local Dating Site, Sign Up For Free! www.blahblah.com”. Another offer that might work now is targeting last minute Christmas shoppers with a free gift card, or another incentive based CPA offer and post an ad up like “Guilty Of Last Minute Shopping? Claim Your FREE $250 (enter store name) Gift Card Now! Limited Quantities Available! www.blahblah.com”
Are you getting my drift?
Many top performing CPA offers have custom landing pages available, so all you need is to grab a domain name to host it, or if permitted by your affiliate network, redirect straight to the advertisers landing page of your choice.
If you’re even half decent with Photoshop, you could make a really attractive ad in under an hour, $7 for a domain name, and if you want to take it an extra step – make some flyers that are similarly branded and post them up around busy sections of the city.
Most dating, scholarship, loan and gift card offers range from $3-$20+ payout for a simple form completion. When you look at the investment compared to potential return – one would be stupid not to take advantage of the struggling local newspapers that provide cost effective advertising options. What if that $60 translated into $400 dollars per week, would you consider that to be a sound investment? I think we all know the answer here.
Think outside the box, because each day that passes more people are getting into “online” methods of marketing, which means saturation and intense competition – especially with a platform like Adwords. By utilizing offline advertising mediums, one can cash out with minimal time and monetary effort – and after some initial testing you could have a hands off proven stream of revenue to add to your online wallet.
Cheers,
Elijah
$50? that is almost a steal!!! 🙂 that sure is a great opportunity to try. how were your results?
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Holy crap dude, that’s awesome! No time for this Christmas (at least not for me), but this would work for most holidays. 🙂
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Great Post! One of the main local papers here in Cincinnati, Ohio have switched to a digital website, and got rid of the widespread local circulation of papers. I guess it’s more cost effective for them to do that these days, but then they’re missing out on many people who do not use a computer, or don’t have internet access. I remember trying a local ad for a MLM business I was involved with a few years ago in a weekly paper with little success. I think it was because it was hidden with all the other classified ads. You definitely need to get an ad that sticks out. One on the front page would be awesome, especially at only $50 a week.
I think the craigslist has given many local papers, and ebay a run for their money. I’ve sold more things locally on there then I ever sold on ebay or by using a local for sale advertisement.
Elijah is back!!!!
Super post, my friend. I am one such commuting gerbil currently and we have the ‘Metro’ here in London too (along with about 3 other free papers). You are so right about utilising the flailing offline mediums to promote your online endeavours. I think it costs substantilly more the $50 a week here in the UK though.
Reminds me of one of my first entreprenurial gigs. I was buying things in bulk on ebay and then listing them in the local free classifieds. Worked beautifully for quite a while. If I had ten old pcs, did them up a little and then put an ad out, I could sell all ten off the same advert for a tidy profit.
Think outside the box!
Bloggerhood ’09
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@Daniel – Yeah, well that’s where we can potentially step in and take advantage of this sort of opportunity. Many local papers are struggling to get advertising, meaning their prices have dropped considerably within the last 5-10 years. Getting an advert on the first 1-5 pages could bring some serious return, especially if it was a simple 5 field submit that was cashing out at like $15-$20…
@Neal – Yea boi! I’m definitely starting to feel the focus getting back on track, and I’m actually glad that I took some time to focus on other things, because it allowed me to step away and see where I want to go with this site – and many things will be changing for the better in the new year.
Yeah, $50 for a front page isn’t always realistic, but even $150 or $200 a week, for a front page advert, with a proven offer, attractive ad, and optimized landing page.. I could see that translating into hundreds, even thousands a day/week if done right.
Yeah, I had a feeling you guys had Metro as well in the UK – it’s a great paper! Better than most of the paid ones.
Great post. I’m fairly certain that Metro is one, if not the, largest free newspaper in the world. I circulates in most major cities in north american and europe. Which is probably why they can afford such low advertising rates since atleast half of the content is used in evey issue worldwide. Its interesting though that most papers in North America are having huge difficulties right now with the Tribune filling for chapter 11 in the U.S. and even the New York Times having to mortgage thier Manhattan HQ to stay solvent. Aparently they dont read thier own paper if they think they can beat a financial crisis brought on by bad mortgages by taking one out themselves. If the big papers had perhaps thought outside the box years ago they wouldnt be getting thier ass handed to them by craigslist and kijiji since half of all newspaper revenue is brought in through classifieds. I say screw ’em let them go under. thats what they get for not being able to read the writing on the wall.
Hey, great post! I immediatly went and checked out the pricing for some of the free newspapers that run in London…sadly their prices are considerably higher:\ You looking at around £600 for a decent sized advert – for a day! Sad times…
The information is still good though! I mean, I could even set up a website aimed at Canadians to promote a CPA through, and promote it on that newspaper – your not just restricted to your own towns/cities local papers!
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@Alastair – You’re right dude, I’m pretty sure the Metro is THE largest free paper in the world, as Neal said above, it’s up in the UK as well… It’s a great paper! One of the only that I actually read every now and then. Sure, the big papers could have easily projected the Internet to eventually take away a HUGE chuck of there readers, and motivation.. How could they not?
I don’t think a lot of newspapers advertise their own “online” print enough (in their printed version), leaving readers to Google around finding other shit instead of being loyal to one paper and one brand, whether online or off!
@Dan – Yowsers! That’s hardcore man… $600/day my ass.. you should have asked them if they provided a jar of Vaseline with that price! You’d be getting fucked for sure!
That’s totally smart man, who says limit yourself to your own region, or even country… almost every paper can be accessed online, in one way or another, geo-targeting is uber-successful man.. I don’t have too much experience myself.. but I KNOW people who make a killing targeting locally, even down to the domain name… i.e. buy a .au domain, promote an Australian qualified CPA offer in a local Aussie newspaper…
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Oh dude. Geo – targeted marketing is the next step I suppose. Ya know, I wrote my experience on my blog with Geo Targeted Marketing and it’s just fckin amazing !
People don’t realize how stupidly easy it is. Because the competition is like gazillion times lower, and it’s gazillion times easier to get on top on search engines if you’re targeting your niche locally. Oh the endless opportunities….
Cheers,
The Moneyac
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@TheMoneyac – Dude, for sure! I have minimal experience with successful geo-targeting, and that was early on in my career online. I suppose if I was to launch a full fledged geo targeted campaign now I would destroy anybody in my path and cash out! Or at least that’s what the unicorn told me in my dream last night…
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Yeah dude…I been thinking the same thing about classifieds and such. Taking what we know…offline…as more peeps try to go online, it leaves a lot of money on the tables for us.
I must say, your plan sounds awesome and I can’t wait for the results.
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lol.. why can’t I think of stuff like this? man..
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I know this is old post, but i came here searching for offline newspapers CPA advertising. What were the results?
Hey bro, i am also interested in results, how did it go. Does it pay off to invest in offline magazines. I read somewhere that it’s better to test first CPA offer online and if itconverts well, then to start offline promotion