Expert: Charles Taylor - 4/23/2007

Question
Me, and my business partner have tried recruiting talent through what I am told is the largest alternative newspaper in the southeast.  We paid about $40 for a 1 week run through the paper.  What we got were a total of 7 phone calls.  Two callers were pranks.  Three callers were questionable in their intent to do adult work.  Two callers seemed like solid candidates.

My partner thought that the ad was a total flop because of the low call volume.  I thought it was mediocre based on volume and ROI.  I pointed out that the return on investment is probably highest with the ad.  As I see it, we got at least 2 prospects for about $20 each from running a one week ad.  Had we been paying referral fees, or gone to a strip club it would cost us much more per person I think.  

The conclusion we came to is it is going to take running the ad consistently, and over time for results to really show.

What do you think?  Are the result we got from running the ad typical?

Answer
Result we got from running the ad typical...yes welcome to the game.


You get better rates running an ad long term.....and consider this most people on the fence that see your ad for awhile will see that you are not a fly by night operation. My joke to the girls that call me and ask how long I have been in business is to let them look at the Internet Archive and see how long my sites have been up in relation to my competitors. Now if this does not set someone at ease of doing business with you then you’re in the wrong business to begin with.

So consistency and broaden your range of scope….try differ ad styles (display vs. text) and wordings and naturally you have to do a nationwide search so prepare to empty your bank accounts.