Classifieds

Costs of advertising in local newspapers in Gauteng today

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Did I get the shock of my life when I called the classifieds advertising division at the Pretoria East Record newspaper recently?

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I learned that any advertisement, up to about 30 THIRTY words, in the classifieds advertisement section of the Pretoria East Record, costs in the region of R600.00 per ad, per newspaper placement. The newspaper is printed weekly.

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An actual current R600.00/placement ad, with the following content –

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PETER THE PLUMBER

NB: No call-out charges!

Free quotes.

Blocked drains and isolation of geyser.

083-588-2341

*This is a current ad!

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COSTS ANALYSIS

Placing this ad in the Pretoria East Record for 80% of the 52 weeks in the year (that is how many times – on average – the newspaper is printed annually. For 41 weeks of the year, this newspaper is printed, considering holidays, the festive season, and other factors. (Still an estimation)

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Should you wish to place the above-sized advertisement in the paper, for 41 weeks of the year, you will have to budget R24 600.00 for newspaper advertising costs. How many artisans, or self-employed persons, can afford that?

 

Noticeably, there are only 2 TWO plumbers advertising on 17 February 2023 in this newspaper, one garden/rubble removal advert, one handyman advert, and so on, and so on. This is a clear indication that most of the artisans operational in the affluent Pretoria East region simply cannot afford to advertise at these "ridiculous" rates!

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Artisans and self-employed people need to have access to an affordable advertising platform, from January to December, year after year. One cannot do business “in the dark” and owners of these regional newspapers are most certainly outpricing many potential advertising clients. In fact, I prefer to call their pricing models “daylight robbery”, and because there are just no alternatives, you will get the “PETER THE PLUMBERS” who desperately need to make ends meet and who sometimes use their living expenses to pay for the ads.

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It reminds me of a friend of mine, a fruit and vegetable store owner in Orkney, Johnny. One day he got a fantastic special at the market where he was offered one ton of apples for forty cents each. It was back in 2002, and apples at that time normally sold for R2 each. Johnny priced the apples up at R3.50 each - they were superior quality apples though - and he sold less than one-tenth, the rest rotted on his shelves. He afterward bragged that he still made a small profit. What if he sold the apples for R1.20 each? He would have sold all and made a 200% profit. Newspaper owners still cannot grasp this simple business fact.   

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IT IS A DISGRACE TO CHEAT PEOPLE LIKE THAT BY RIDICULOUSLY OVERCHARGING THEM FOR ADVERTISING!  

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The BEELD newspaper’s “Snuffel Gids” ads / Classifieds ads division is fading daily. Their Snuffel Gids used to be 3 to 5 pages. Nowadays it's only one page, sometimes less, yet prices continue to spiral upwards year after year. The story of the fruit and vegetables dealer recalled.

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Artisans and many self-employed people simply cannot afford to pay R600 for one classified advertisement in one newspaper, running for one week before it is considered “old news”.

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The Gauteng Business Group is here to help people like PETER THE PLUMBER.

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We offer “PETER THE PLUMBERS” among our members, access to our classified advertising platform where they will pay about one-twentieth, even lesser, of the price one pays at the Pretoria East Record (for example) and for similar exposure, if not better.

 

Online advertising on website platforms and social media sites like Facebook’s Advertising Manager, Google AdWords, Instagram, and Twitter, is the future of advertising locally and internationally. It’s time that South African business owners experience this RUDE AWAKENING!

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Consider we calculate your classifieds advertising costs, on our CLASSIFIEDS advertising platform on this website, and compare it to the costs of advertising in the Pretoria East Record - as follows – considering the placement of the same PETER THE PLUMBER ad to be placed on the PLUMBERS sub-menu of our CLASSIFIEDS pages. 

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COST CALCULATION –

Ad in Pretoria East Record

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Cost/placement/week for 41 weeks annually -

Total costs at R600/week equal R24 600.00 annually.

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Ad on our CLASSIFIEDS pages

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Cost/placement/month for 12 months -

Total costs at R30/month equal R360.00 annually.

[equals 1.5% of the price of advertising in the Pretoria East Record]

 

Which of these two options would you prefer –

1. Considering, on our CLASSIFIED pages, you can change the content of your classified ad whenever you wish.

2. Also, consider your ads will be displayed on the website for 1 month or 30 days.

3. Also, consider, we will, and you will promote our CLASSIFIED pages on social media sites on an ongoing basis, allowing your ad/s to be viewed online by at least 100 000 ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND viewers per month, and that such exposure will grow from month-to-month!

4. Also considering, the income we produce will be used to cover the costs of administration and management of our CLASSIFIED Ads Division, and cover costs of modern-day, professional website traffic analytics and page visitor monitoring so that you are convinced of the traffic volumes visiting the pages where you advertise on (these traffic analytics are not in place yet).   

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WHICHEVER WAY ONE LOOKS AT IT, IT IS SURELY MUCH MORE SENSIBLE TO ADVERTISE ONLINE!