When I got back to my apartment today I found the latest copy of schooled magazine on my doorstep and I have to say at first I was just annoyed. I wished I could have seen the fool who dropped this waste of ink and paper off at my door so I could throw it at him, but then as i picked it up I noticed the back page was just another Goldsmith jewelers ad... so I glanced at it wondering once again if i really did get the best deal on my wife's wedding rings and then I thought to myself "hey why am I looking at this?" I was supposed to just be unhappy that my trash can would be another useless magazine full. Instead I looked through the whole thing and notices that 11 pages worth of the 23 page magazine were full color ads. The little blips of advise on how to date better and how to stay awake in class would take maybe an afternoon to write. So really this little magazine is brilliant! Provide a small amount of fairly useful information, just enough to at least catch a few curious eyes and fill in the rest with as many ads as you can get drop it on every doorstep and BOOM your in the money.
All you have to do to make this thing a cash cow side project is have a good advertising sales team who understands what Clients need from the college audience. Whoever this sales team is they have a hard job, I know I have worked in ad sales with many of the companies who ran ads in this mag when I was an ad rep for the daily universe. The amount of tough results oriented companies advertising in Schooled is honestly really impressive. These companies are run by tough Men and Women from around the area who are trying to make ends meet in this tough economy and wont throw money at anything unless they really believe it will work. So if the content is basically garbage and no one is actively seeking to get the magazine anyway, its just dropped on every doorstep, what does that mean about the value of the medium? Is the fact that these ads are very likely to be seen by at least a few people in every apartment a good enough reason to place an ad or is it solid, reputable content that gets people to really take a look inside a magazine?
-Sam McCall
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Well I guess it strictly depends, "is the juice worth the squeeze?" If the product that you are advertising has a value like a wedding ring, than absolutely you can run ads all day. It only takes one wedding ring every two weeks to break even on those ads (if even that). However if it's a mechanical pencil, I would probably think twice.
In all honesty, I feel as though it is probably boredom more than anything. We are college students, and these magazines are written to be put on the doorsteps of apartment complexes in college towns. I feel like they count on us reading them because it is unlikely that very many of us have regular subscriptions to magazines. I think that someone was smart enough to see a niche, and it isn't too hard to know what kind of things we would find useful to read since we are such a small demographic.
It's not so much content as reputation that sells magazines. A lot of magazines don't get read--very few are read cover to cover--but they serve as "coffee table" items. You put them out in your living room like a decoration, to advertise who you are to the world. But reputation is built by the content. Just look at Newsweek. It used to be one of the world's most circulated magazines. Last year a change in management that lead to more sensational content cost the magazine more than half its subscribers in six months.
Companies that want to be associated with whatever reputation a magazine might have are often willing to fork over cash to be a part of that magazine.
It may be an advantage that the magazine is dropped off on every doorstep. Though the content is not the highest quality, it is being mass distributed. If nothing else, a person at every single apartment had to pick it up to throw it away and saw the jewerly store advertisement. Because the magazine is one that is created locally and has no subscription, the ad placement was, I am sure, relatively cheap. Enough to keep the magazine going, and a cheap enough investment for the advertisers. Both are benefited. This mutally beneficial relationship is what allows the magazine to end up on your doorstep, and customers walking through the door.
I think that it is a great idea to drop off the magazine at each door step especially since it is directed at students. For the most part students are very busy and the last thing they would pick up to read is a magazine, especially with all the reading they have to do already. By dropping it off at each doorstep the magazine is almost guaranteed to at the very least get inside the door, whether its going in to be read or going in to be thrown away. Someone is bound to see an ad or two and if it's good enough to grab their attention then the magazine has done it's job. I am pretty sure many rings and things have been purchased because of those possibly cheap ads.
Without knowing which magazine you are referring to, I can just assume that it is comparable to the ad paper I get in the mail each week but with some sort of attempt to create meaningful content squeezed in between the ads.
I think as long as there is a demand for the "hot deals" there will always be those free magazines/catalogs. It seems like those kinds of magazines are picked up and read not just because of the content but because of the ads as well. Some people just like ads I guess.
I know that I don't pick up a magazine because I want to look at the ads. I'm sure many people also feel the same. Having that magazine at my doorstep, I'll pick it up and flip through it until I see an interesting article or an advertisement that catches my eye. Although many students may throw the magazine away right off the bat, there are just as many who will look at it. The odds are always in the advertisers favor when advertising is produced by mass.
I also received this magazine on my doorstep and planned to just throw it out. But when I came home from class, my roommate told me to read the "Kissing Tips" article. Hilarious. But honestly, I did not notice one ad in the magazine. I just took another glance, and I think one reason these ads don't stand out is because there are very few full-page advertisements. I also noticed how painfully cheesy and unprofessional some of these ads look...is it that impossible to make a decent ad without spending a ton of money?
I got the same magazine delivered to my doorstep. I won't lie... I read the whole magazine. The content was terrible, but it was like a car wreck and I couldn't look away. My roommate and I spent probably 30 minutes flipping through the magazine. The content was ridiculous enough that it caught my attention. And I know I'm not the only one that felt this way. Many of my neighbors and ward members were talking about this magazine. If it hadn't been delivered to my doorstep, there is no way I would have sought after it.
We are college students attending a school that emphasizes dating and marriage. The ring company saw an opportunity to advertise to a niche market. I'm sure the ad space was cheap and considering the reach it had, it was probably a good investment.
This blog post made me think of when I was a freshman in the dorms and once a month every mail cubby would be flooded with the same advertisements and school magazines. Of course all of the freshman would just pull it out and stick it in the trash. Now (being a mature adult) I have applied to a subscription of Time magazine. I get it in the mail and read it cover to cover. So what is the difference between free magazines and ones that we pay money for? That is obvious. We pay money for it and therefore I think it is more valuable.
Not only do I think print media we pay for is more valuable, but I think different types of media have different connotations. Personally I read the New York times so I can talk to my mother-in-law about glen beck and have actual evidence to tell her he is crazy. I ignore the ads in that magazine. BUT I use to read the Daily universe because I knew they would have entertaining stories and coupons in some of their issues. So, some newspapers are more advertisement friendly then others.
I love magazines, especially the ads. I personally don't get mad if someone leaves a magazine on my door step because i might find it useful, subscribing to a magazine is another story. Throughout my life i have had many magazine subscriptions, mainly for the articles but i don't mind the ads. The reason why some magazines are still dropped off at people doors is because it works, majority of the population is most likely to skim through it and have an ad catch their eye. It's all a business and they had to get you to buy their product one way or the other. If we were in the same industry we would do the same things and try to target a certain demographic.
I think that if these are tough advertisers that look for results then this medium must be working. Even with low response rates in direct mail advertisers can make a lot of money. Even though most students don't have a lot of money they must be buying if the advertisers are willing to put the ads in the magazine still. I think its smart that the ads are around the stories because while the articles are being read we are still noticing the ads in the corner of our eyes. It creates a longer impression of each ad.
Well, I look at it two ways:
1) To run a small printing and distribution business can be profitable, if the workforce is small and there is enough marketing money to do it. If they take in $10000 per month off all the ads, then they need to make sure their printing costs, sales costs to advertisers and distribution is lower than that because there is no subscription income, otherwise this business is pointless. More than likely the owner runs this as a crew of 1 or 2 who hire out printing, pays a few college student to deliver, and in the end makes a few grand a month.
From the advertising companies' perspectives, they may be small businesses who lack the ability to effectively track results. Thus action without measurement gives no definitive answer of how the ads are doing (which if we knew would answer the question). Thus the ads may be horrible and this be the right medium for these companies to market but they get poor results due to their content as one stated; or the ads could be well done but reaching the wrong market; or the right market at the wrong time. Without tracking, everything is a guess as to who is winning. Think if basketball games had no scoreboard and no one was sure what mattered most, whether running down the court the most, dribbling the ball the longest or putting the ball in the hoop: how would we define success?
Lots of advertisers never find a way to track it, and are sold on the BELIEF that a product gets results, but the question is do they base that value off impressions (eyes who see it) or off actions (number of purchases). Because the impressions estimate comes from the guy selling you the idea on the crappy magazine. This leaves room for a lot of bias and the results are up to you to track. Which if you don't, you have no clue that it is working accept for the claim of the sales guy at the magazine.
2)From this classes response to this and the other post, if we don't value the advertisements or don't feel it is directed to us we don't enjoy it and often have distaste for it. So the question is does the content and the advertisements reach us as college students and do they cause us to get action. If they just reach us and don't cause action, then there is one of the issues listed above.
My point in including all this is to show my view of how to analyze if it is getting results but more information is needed to analyze the effectiveness of the magazine from the advertisers perspectives. They may reach 25,000 students and only need 2500 to see it, and only 500 to like the magazine to say it is a success- it all depends on the products and profit margins of the marketers themselves.
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