How to get the Size of your Advertisement Right

The size of your ad is a vital decision, for if you try and squeeze too much into a small space to save money then you run the risk of having fewer people read your ad, and dramatically reducing your response rate. Conversely, if you use a quarter page to say what could have drawn as much attention with an eighth, then you are wasting money.

So the first thing to consider on the road to a correctly sized ad is your message. What exactly are you selling, and how many benefits and features do you really need the advertisement to carry. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Must I really list all the benefits for this particular audience?
  • Do I need to show a photograph or illustration of it, or does everybody know what it looks like?
  • How many of my competitors are going to be advertising on the same page?
  • What must I do differently to be sure of getting noticed?

    • Once you have answered all the questions above, you are then in a better position to begin sizing your ad.

    As a rule of thumb, whatever size you come up with as a minimum advertisement size, you will need to enlarge it by a size. If you are planning a classified box ad, allow at least 2 capital letters, of whatever size print you are using, to fit in the margin on all sides. So, once you have laid out your ad in the way you want it, that will give you the recommended width of your margin.

    This, and many other resources for maximizing response from print advertising, are available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

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