03/ 24/ 2006
by Steve Strauss
A marketing tool that many small-business owners don't know about is "remnant space advertising." Remnant space advertising opens up when media outlets do not sell all of their advertising space or time. This unsold space or airtime is called remnant space and can often be bought at big discounts.
Advertising time and space is a perishable commodity; if not sold, it’s lost or given away for public service announcements or some other filler. Instead of taking a loss for unsold ad space or airtime, media companies sometimes take far less than their usual retail fees to unload remnant space. This means you can buy what is typically pricey media for much less than usual.
How to best use remnant space advertising depends on the type of media you use:
Magazines: One of the great remnant opportunities comes from national magazines. These magazines print local editions and sell regional ads. If they fail to sell all of the regional ads (which is not uncommon), or sell an odd number, their unsold inventory becomes a remnant space opportunity for you.
Also, smaller magazines offer remnant advertising as well. Magazines create their editorial content based, at least in part, upon the amount of advertising sold. But sometimes advertisers back out, choose smaller ads, miss a deadline, or the magazine ends up with additional content, all of which creates an opportunity for you.
Newspapers: Because newspapers are published daily, they offer plenty of remnant space opportunities. One success factor with newspapers is your willingness to accept smaller ads because those are the ones that may be needed to fill gaps in the paper. It also helps to have a good working relationship with your advertising rep. Check out www.mss-standby.com to learn more.
Television: The ever-expanding explosion of television stations –– network, cable and satellite –– is good for the cost-conscious entrepreneur. Plenty of television remnant space exists, and discounts can reach as much as 90 percent off the rate card.
Radio: Radio is also good for remnant buys because, unlike print media, which can be expanded and contracted to a certain extent as needed, radio advertising is finite; there are a fixed number of spots per hour. Thus, getting that unsold time at steep discounts is definitely doable. Such discounts can range from 25 to 75 percent off. One simple way to get remnant radio time is to purchase regular time, then ask that they throw in an equal number of remnant spots.
If remnant space advertising makes sense to you, one key is to make it easy for the media company to work with you and use your ad––and that means you have to be able to beat the big boys. Because ads from larger advertisers show up at the last minute, media companies would often rather offer remnant space to them because they have the budgets, ad departments and managers to create the ad quickly. So if you want these sorts of opportunities to come your way, you will have to be as easy to work with as the large advertisers. First, let your ad rep know you are interested and ready. Second, earmark some money for such an ad and have it ready to go when needed.
The upshot is that remnant space advertising can definitely stretch your advertising dollar, but just remember that it is not an easy way to advertise because it is last minute. If the opportunity should arise, however, you're in luck because it will certainly be cheap.
