ACPR Blog

Sometimes it is easy to be confused between Editorial and Advertorial
Editorial is what the publication’s journalists write. they may research a news story or use information from a press release, but it is up to them what they include. You have no control over what they write. This makes up most of the content of most good media.
Advertorial is paid for, like an advertisement. A business may decide that potential customers will be more influenced by an article promoting their business. They pay for the space, and fill it with an article, often in a similar style to the rest of the publication. You can spot advertorials though as they must have ‘promotion’ or ‘advertisement’ printed above the text.

Do you find yourself signing up to advertise in a publication just because the ad salesperson called you? This can be a waste of money and means that you are advertising because they asked you, rather than because their publication reaches your target audience.
Be prepared so you can say no to all their sales techniques next time. Think about how much you spent on advertising last year, and the budget you have for this year. Look at the publications you would really like to be in, and contact them for a media pack which has their ad prices. The media pack will also tell you what sort of people read the magazine. Remember that you may be able to negotiate as much as 50 per cent off the list price, and decide how you will spread your ad budget over the media that you want to be seen in.
Then, when the ad salesperson calls you can say calmly and confidently that your ad budget is already allocated for this year. If they won’t take that for an answer, hang up.

The Bump and Beyond Bag Company Ltd is attending The Baby Show, Earls Court, 17-19 October 2008.  Alongside launching our all-new website and unique maternity bag range to a fanfare of PR, we will be promoting a small selection of complementary organisations, like your own, and would like to gauge your interest in our service offering, which includes literature distribution, brand affiliation, web promotion and bespoke data collection.

The Baby Show attracts the following people:
26,559 attendees - 84% A, B and C1 socio-demographic groups
45% of visitors are pregnant- 40% already have children (58% aged 0-1 & 37% aged 1-5)
74% female with an average age of 30
Average income: £43,550.47 - Average spend at show: £214.82 - Average spend after show: £289.62
(The Baby Show, ABC Audited)

As you can see, a fantastic and receptive target audience for all baby and child related products and services. Our packages are as follows;

Your A5 postcard / flyer in our promotional show bag – Distributed to 5000 individuals.
Fantastic exposure for £199

Your A5 postcard / flyer included in 5000 of our promotional bags.
A 5cm logo on our promotional bag - Distributed to 5000 individuals.
A feature in our e-Newsletter in the run-up to the show.
Data from our Baby Show lifestyle data collection – Very clean data collected from all visitors to our stand and entrants into our competitions to win maternity bags and free weaning and training courses.
Management of competitions to win your free gifts - for extra exposure!
A link to your site from www.bumpandbeyondbagcompany.co.uk
All of this for just £399

Feature in our exclusive “Best of the Industry” A4 Directory leaflet.
Link on www.bumpandbeyondbagcompany.co.uk homepage –  A 155×100 pixel button linking to your site.
10cm logo and contacts on promotional show bags.
Promotional material in our retail maternity bags for one whole year.
Features in The Bump & Beyond Bag Company Newsletter and brand affiliation for 1 year.
Data from our Baby Show lifestyle data collection – The same clean data as with Silver, but also includes bespoke data requirements from yourselves.
Management of competitions to win your free gifts - for extra exposure!
Distribution of your literature.
All for only £599

Should you require any further information, or would like to discuss our services, including your promotional material requirements in greater detail, please call Clive Astin at Middle 8 Marketing Communications on 0115 714 9878, or 07903 222 302.  Alternatively, e-mail clive@m8mc.co.uk.

Here are a few promotional opportunities from the NCT.

User Representatives Forum- Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities

This one-day forum is expected to bring together 120 user representatives on committees

and structures influencing maternity, family and child health and support services throughout the UK.

As well as informing user reps the forum will be a great opportunity for reps to come together to discuss topical issues and share new ideas and experiences of projects and activities in which they are involved. Reps are well informed and highly motivated to meet exhibitors both to exchange ideas and recommendations and to discuss and buy products and services.

The cost for an exhibition stand at this event is £150 plus VAT and includes:

• A six foot table and two chairs

• Two delegate passes, including refreshments and lunch

• The inclusion of 50 word company profile in the delegate pack

Inserts may be placed in the delegate pack at a cost of £75 plus VAT.

Headline and other sponsorship opportunities are available to suit, please email commercial@nct.org.uk for more information.

NCT Members magazine, New Gen, 2008 - 2009 media pack released

NewGen is read by a predominantly ABC1 unique, professional, well-educated, highly influential and informed readership of parents. The magazine acts as a direct link with the NCT whilst also providing advertisers with the opportunity to promote their products in a highly trusted and effective environment.

For more information please see  http://www.nct.org.uk/support-us/corporate support/advertising or email nct@mongoosemedia.com

For further opportunities see http://www.nct.org.uk/support-us/corporate-support:

I spend much of my time coaching small business owners to help them promote their own business. Here are some tips from my talks:

• Start by being clear about what is unique and different about your business: it is hard to stand out from all the other businesses, especially if you want to use press releases to get free editorial coverage.
• Make a plan: write down all the ideas you can think of for promoting your business - using sticky notes can make this easy to sort out. You might want to do it with a friend to help stimulate ideas.
• Draw up a month by month activity plan: have a look at the promotional plan and action plans at PRBasics in the Free Download section to get more of an idea of how I’d lay out a plan and some promotional ideas.  Have a column for advertising, public relations, online marketing, events, and perhaps include leafleting and direct mailing and any other marketing strategies you will use. Note down when new lines will be coming on board, especially ones exclusive to you, when you will have sales, and seasonal events like Mothers Day with which you could tie in promotional activities. If ideas and planning don’t come easily to you, I can help with a telephone consultation which will really get your brain going, or even write your plan for you after chatting through all the issues.
• Spread your promotional ideas out throughout the year, so you have something going on every month and week. Some people do PR every Monday, or the first week of every month, say.
• Once you have your ideas, look at the fixed costs for e.g. attending events, getting flyers printed. Set aside a small amount for ads each month.
• Think about your strengths and where you would need to get help in. If you like writing, you might want to write your own press releases: again there is a template at PRBasics.
• If you can’t imagine how to start writing a press release, I can write one for you to get you started, and you could then adapt it to cover ‘new news’ the following month. Press releases cost £40 per hundred words and are usually around 350 words long.
• If you have written your own press release and want a professional edit, I offer a press release ‘health check’ service.
• To make it easier to get in touch with the people who can give you coverage I offer an extensive and up-to-date database of media contacts at parenting magazines (national and local), websites, and journos with an interest in parenting at womens mags and newspapers (£125). You can then email and phone with your news as often as suits you.
• Finally, I have a limited number of slots to do PR for people: a single press release costs in the region of £600 with a reduction if you book regular work.

The latest ABC figures came out this week, telling us which magazines have gained readers and which are going down in popularity. In the last 6 months the credit crunch has hit many magazines, especially those featuring celebrities.

If you are looking to target women, you can’t beat coverage in Take a Break which has two or three times the circulation of most other women’s magazines, leading ABC’s sales tables after the TV guides. After that, the most read magazines include Saga, Reader’s Digest. OK!, Closer, Glamour and Chat.

If you want to reach younger women, Glamour and Cosmopolitan lead the tables: for older women look at Good Housekeeping, Yours and Woman & Home.

An article in Media Week has suggested that you can get bigger discounts on advertising at the moment as businesses are cutting their ad budgets and ad sales teams become ever keener to get advertisers on board.

I’d be interested to know whether people have found it easier to get discounts if they have booked any ads recently.