Advertising is a very expensive, but necessary part of any business. When we advertised for vacancies in our up-coming business, we spent $1,000 on placing 2 ads. They were both the same ad, but one was placed in the Wednesday issue of the local newspaper, and the second was in the Saturday’s issue. Both are very popular papers, and both have many readers of the Situations Vacant columns. The first issue on the Wednesday provided us with about 30 calls, and about 12 interviews. The next run of the ad on the Saturday produced 1 call, the applicant was successful and later proved to be useless.

All this goes to prove is that advertising is extremely expensive, and does not always work.

When advertising in printed form, always ask relevant questions before forking out the dollars for it. You should find out what other adverts will be around it. What stories or other information will be on the same page (you’d rather not be on the same page as an article on a recent outbreak of syphilis would you?). You also want to ensure you are on the right-hand page. When reading a paper, people don’t look at the adverts if they don’t catch their eye, and studies also show that when skimming through a paper, people usually only look at the right-hand page. See for yourself next time you flick through a newspaper or magazine.

Try to use a little colour, but this can prove expensive also. And never, never, use the standard clipart provided by the newspaper or magazine company, or standard pictures found in MS Word or other such packages. Tacky! Go for original and eye catching pictures.

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