Assessing your options – how to get the best bang for your buck!

I assessed an advertising opportunity for one of my clients today. This is how I did it.
He was offered the back of a local golf club’s scorecard the players receive. His ad would appear along with 2 others. It was $400 to be on 8,000 cards.
Now, a good way to assess the value your advertising (aside from does it work!) is what’s called CPM. Stands for cost per thousand. How much does it cost to reach 1,000 people. $400 divided by 8 = $50. $50 to get the ad in front of a potential 1,000 people.
Let’s look at the downside of these ads:
1. Do golfers look at the back of golf scorecards? I’d say no.
2. My client sells mainly to women. More men play at this golf course than women.
3. I know that this golf course has been purchased and will be developed into housing. Those 8,000 cards may not even all get used.
So, we have an ad that the vast majority of people won’t see. And if the golfers do see, they are not our target market anyway. And the ads compete against 2 others on a very small space.
This ad ain’t going to make the cut!
Let’s compare it to other forms of advertising. We’ll see how it stacks up against the local free newspaper.
Readership of 80,000. Costs $160 for a decent sized ad. For $480 we would get 3 good sized ads. And a free editorial – that’s a story written by a journalist about my client’s business.
3 and a bit times more cost effective
For much the same price we get to 320,000 people. $480 divided by 320 = $15 CPM ($15 to get in front of 1,000 people).
From that simple exercise we can see that my client doesn’t spend $400 on the golf scorecard ads. his money is better spent elsewhere.
Can you apply that sort of review to your marketing?
Brendon