Here’s an important tip if you do plan to run some display ads in magazines. Be sure to tell your sales rep that you want your display ad listed within the first 30 pages of the magazine. If he/she says they don’t put display ads that far up in the magazine, get out a copy of the magazine to confirm whether or not that’s true. These sales people will some times not tell the whole truth.

If you do see ads in the first 30 pages of the magazine, ask the sales rep how you can get your ad there. If the sales rep says you need to pay more, then don’t do it. Especially if you paid full price for that ad.

If your sales rep just says he/she doesn’t have the power or authority to guarantee any placement of ads, then ask to talk to someone else who does have that authority. It’s critical for your ad to be some where within those first 30 pages of the magazine. If it’s a classified, don’t worry about where it gets placed. First of all, classifieds just get listed on a first come first serve basis and it would be a waste of your time to bother trying to bargain on the location of a classified ad. Plus, people who actually read the classified ads just go right to the back of the magazine anyway to look at the classifieds, so you actually want to be as far back as you can with classifieds. Classifieds are almost the exact opposite of a display ad.

Another important trick when running any size display ad in a magazine is this: Be sure to ask for a discount. Yah, that may sound obvious, but would you have really asked if I didn’t just tell you to do it? Most people don’t. Most advertisers just pay the price that’s listed and figure those prices are set in stone. Most people are just go with the flow people who don’t want to argue, debate, or haggle. But you’ll almost always get a discount on your display ad if you simply ask for it. Start our by asking for an extreme discount.

Tell them you want a 12 month ad rate for your one month ad. The price of a 12 month rate is a great starting point for your negotiation. Or if you want to put it in even simpler terms just find out what the standard/regular price is on the ad you want then cut it in half and tell them that’s the most money you’ll pay for that ad. If they say no, don’t be afraid to tell the sale rep you’d like to think about the best price they could offer and that you’ll call them back another time.

These people hate when you do this because they’re playing a poker game and they thought they just called your bluff. They’re great poker players but when you tell them you’ll get back to them later, it really calls their bluff and just today a sales rep called me from SBO magazine and gave me the rate she wouldn’t give me just 2 days ago. She said it was not possible to get what I wanted. So I told her that I’d like to think about the price she did offer me and that I’d get back to her. Well she couldn’t handle waiting and just called me today to say she changed her mind and I could get that better price for that bigger ad I’d asked about the other day. So play “Hard To Get” with these big advertising firms and magazine ad departments and learn to make them play the “Waiting Game.” You’ll be surprised how often you get what you want.

Also be sure and ask for the “Agency Discount”

The “Agency discount” is basically a special rate that magazines offer advertisers who act as their own advertising agency. Usually you don’t actually have to be a “Real” ad agency to get this rate. The main thing most magazines care about is that you didn’t go through an ad agency to find them. So just ask them for this discount. This discount is usually 15% and it sure can’t hurt to ask!

Ask about any other special discounts they may offer too. Many companies have a variety of special rates. Even hotels often have a corporate rate, a weekend rate, a military rate, honeymoon rate, weekday rate, etc. And these are all priced different. The advertising departments of magazines are no different. They have different rates for different circumstances as well, so always ask.

Of course, classified rates are different. Classified ad rates are carved in stone and you’ll you’d be wasting your time to ask for a discount. The only discount you can sometimes get on classifieds is the “Agency Discount.”

Some magazines even have something they call “Remnant Space” or “Test Rates” As the name implies, remnant space is unsold ad space that still needs to be filled. You can get up to 50% off the regular rate on this kind of remnant ad space.

Test rates are just an introductory offer that assumes you are new to the magazine and that you’d like to try them out. Some magazines do offer “Test Rates” so be sure to ask.

And keep this in mind: These ad agencies and magazine ad departments are almost always going to try to get you to buy more than one month of advertising. They’ll usually have some sort of special price if you buy 3 months, 6 months, or even a year up front. Never do this on your first run with a new magazine. You need to first test that new magazine with a simple one month long ad to be sure you are getting enough sales to cover the cost of that month long ad. If you find out that your ad isn’t even paying for itself, can you imagine if you were forced to keep paying for that same ad for another 6 months? That would be like making car payments on a demolished car.

The only time its ok to pay for more than one month in advance to get in on a special price is when the magazine says you can change your ad each month if you want. Because then at least you’re not stuck with a bad ad that just doesn’t get any attention from the readers. But some times the reason you’re getting a discount on multiple months is because the magazine doesn’t want to have to work with you every month.

So they are basically giving you a discount so that they won’t have to talk to you for a long time. Since your ad wouldn’t change for the duration of the contract, they have less work to do. They don’t have to reformat your ad or re-locate it or re-submit it to their editor. It’s just on auto-pilot for the duration of the contract. And I don’t ever recommend you do that unless you have an ad that has proven to get an incredible response. If you know you’ll be definitely using that same ad over and over then it doesn’t matter if you’re locked into a contract for that ad.