Magazine Advertising Essentials

Magazine advertising has the advantage of being able to directly target your advert at a very specific audience. By looking at the content of the magazine, you can easily identify the type of reader who would be looking at your advert - their age group, gender, geographic location and, probably most importantly, their interests. Armed with this information, you should be able to make a reasonable assessment as to whether or not the audience would be interested in your products and services.

How much does it cost?

While prices will often vary considerably between different magazines, usually depending on their popularity and national coverage, it should be noted that almost all magazine advertising is relatively expensive.

Lead time

For many magazines, you will need to be able to send over your completed artwork in their prescribed format at least one or two months in advance.

Advantages

Magazine advertising enables you to showcase your organisation with very high quality glossy printing that can include a complete array of colours, graphics, text and images for the most professional appearance and finish.
You can target very specific audiences by age, gender, geographic location and interests to increase your chances of being able to advertise directly to the type of people who are most likely to be interested in your products and services.
Unlike newspaper adverts, magazine advertising will usually ensure that your advert is on display for more than just one day. Defending on how often the magazines printed your advert will usually be in people's homes and offices for anything between one week and a month or more.

Disadvantages

Compared to similar types of advertising, such as newspapers, the high cost of magazine advertising is probably the greatest disadvantage of using this type of advertising format.

Limitations

Almost all of the magazines available in newsagents offer full colour, high-quality and glossy adverts within their pages. As much of the magazine will be designed and produced to a very high standard, your audience will probably expect a similar level of quality from your advert. This will usually mean that you will have to outsource the design of your advert to a professional advertising company, and obviously this will incur some extra expense.