Since your cost per prospect is really the measure of the effectiveness of your marketing effort, you want to test the effectiveness of your newspaper advertising before you make any long-term commitments even though long-term commitments may be cheaper. You can commit to long-term once you know that you have some successful advertising.

You want to begin by identifying local publications whose ad rates are acceptable. The lower cost allows you to advertise more frequently and test different parts of your advertising more often.

Most of your newspaper advertising options will fall into a couple of categories. It’s either classified or display ads. Classified ads are less costly when going into newspaper. However, it competes with a lot of other ads and offers. The attention you could get will be diluted. One way to avoid that is put a box around your classified ad. This will help somewhat. First you need to evaluate the paper. Numbers show classifieds aren’t working in major papers as much as neighborhood papers. I personally almost never read classifieds any longer.

The other, more significant category, is display ads. This allows you to place your ad in selected areas throughout the entire newspaper. If you want your ad in the Sports Section, that can be arranged. The cost for display ads is higher so you will need to test the effectiveness of this type of ad before you go into any long-term contract. Your response from display ads will also be higher.