Why I won't consider advertising in a magazine - online or hard copy

Recently a sneaky media salesman managed to get past my call screening by pretending to be a customer looking for an ecommerce website. Of course, as soon as he had me on the phone, I was subjected to a drawn out sales pitch, with prices being slashed before I could even say 'I'm not interested'.

The experience inspired me to write an article explaining why I don't consider this kind of advertising anymore.

They are often scams

Now, of course not all traditional media advertising is a scam, and I don't mean to cast aspersions on those who run a genuine business. But I've been caught out too many times by con artists posing as genuine industry magazines and selling advertising space. When you receive your copy of the magazine, it's immediately obvious that it's simply pages and pages of adverts, with no actual content - and is nothing anybody would ever read. They are also indifferent to getting the adverts right, with badly colour logo, incorrectly placed images and embarrasingly shoddy work.

It's just so ineffecient

Particularly with printed newspapers which are delivered to people's homes whether they like it or not, the large 'distribution' figures that media sales people quote become meaningless very quickly. Just because you've shoved something in someone's door, doesn't mean they are going to look at it. Furthermore, how many of the people who do read it will actually be your target market? Probably very few - unless you're selling bread or milk.

It's so expensive

Even small adverts start in the hundreds of pounds, and they only last a few weeks, if that. You can get a full blown website and a decent SEO campaign for the cost of a single page advert in most publications - and the website will last forever(ish) - as well as being better targeted to customers who are actually looking for your services (see efficiency comments above).

Of course it's possible I just don't know how to use magazine advertising properly, and I'm sure it myst work for some companies. But you know what I do know? Web design and SEO. So, I'll concentrate on what I'm good at, and that's where I can guarantee I'll get fresh leads on a regular basis.