Thread: Need Advice For My First Ad

Hello everyone, I need tips on doing my first full page ad for an upcoming show. What does everyone else do? I have the photos and would like to keep the wording as simple as possible. Please help a first timer ..c::

It is important that the date, time, location & information on where to purchase tickets is prominently featured on the ad. Read Amity's business card thread--a lot of the recommendations and critique offered on fonts, layout, and text would be useful for poster design. Email me at jessica@nayastrance.com & I'll send you an ad our troupe uses for our annual show that has a very clean, simple layout. If you have a draft of your ad it might be helpful to post it so bhuzzers could offer specific critique, just keep in mind if you share your ad, nobody is trying to be mean when they offer feedback, they're trying to help you by offering an objective set of comments, which can often include things that people dislike. ,r:;

Good luck!

I'm assuming it's a newspaper ad?

In order for it to be the most effective, you should make sure you achieve the right frequency. I think a common error dancers make in newspaper advertising is that they buy one ad and wonder why it doesn't work. Ideally, a consumer has to hear/see a message at least three times to remember the brand, act on the message, and make the purchase.

I know this could probably get costly, but it's worth picking the newspaper sales rep's brain (assuming, that is, that you've been working one-on-one with some sort of account exec) about how to reach the most people, the right number of times. Good news is that the newspaper industry is severely hurting right now (same with radio) and they probably have a lot of excess inventory. It's definitely a buyer's market now, when it comes to purchasing radio or newspaper advertising...really sucks for my commissions (I work in radio sales), but you can probably get some pretty good deals right now.

Edited to Add: While you want readers to see your ad more than once, a bellydance show is still a specialty commodity. If a media rep tells you that you need to post your ad every day to get results, I don't think that would be the best strategy, either. The bellydance-savvy portion of newspaper readers isn't big enough to justify a blitzkrieg of ad space. You would probably be better off with a full-page ad once a week, two or three weeks leading up to the event.

Newspaper gurus: Does newspaper reading go up on Saturdays and Sundays? When is the best day to place a newspaper ad? I know that radio listening significantly drops on weekends, but I'm guessing the converse might be true with newspapers, since people have more free time to read them.

Thanks for the tips above. My ad is going to be in a program for a show I am performing at. Part of my contract allows me a free full page ad. I didn't realize this would be part of my contract so I would like to take full advantage of it. I guess I am wondering also if many of you do this on Powerpoint? I'm stupid - I know!

If you're designing it yourself don't use power point. Use Publisher, if you don't have that or another similiar program, you can design some okay stuff just using word. If you're not design savvy it may be worth enlisting a professional or a friend with some know-how.

This article by Brad Dosland on my web site may help:

The Art of the Blurb

Originally Posted by nayastrance

If you're designing it yourself don't use power point. Use Publisher, if you don't have that or another similiar program, you can design some okay stuff just using word. If you're not design savvy it may be worth enlisting a professional or a friend with some know-how.

Hmm, why not Powerpoint? It's my preferred program when I design my own materials, simply because I find it easy to use. Photo-editing aside (which Powerpoint doesn't do), I find it easier to layout stuff in Powerpoint than Publisher. Of course, you need to be compatible with whatever program it needs to go into for print, but you can covert a powerpoint slide to a picture (or pdf if you have the software).

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

Hmm, why not Powerpoint? It's my preferred program when I design my own materials, simply because I find it easy to use. Photo-editing aside (which Powerpoint doesn't do), I find it easier to layout stuff in Powerpoint than Publisher. Of course, you need to be compatible with whatever program it needs to go into for print, but you can covert a powerpoint slide to a picture (or pdf if you have the software).

I never knew that! I'm a school teacher & kids are always doing projects on ppt--its virtually replaced the poster as a way to show what they've learned. I just always think of them for presentations. I like publisher because you have many more features for doing your layout.

Reinaa, you might want to contact the people who are putting the program together and ask them whether there is a particular file format they may need/require. That might influence your choice of software to use in creating your ad.