BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES MAGAZINES The following is a compilation of our editorial opinion on the following "opportunities" magazines. Our objective for sharing them with you is nothing more than to satisfy the foundation of our offer to share my expertise in exchange for your purchase of this electronic book. We do not receive any special treatment from any of these magazines on account of what we say or do not say about how we feel about them. The dollar figures we use when referring to prices these magazines charge for advertising space may be different from those you may already have or may get in the future. Please consider that we have been placing ads in these magazines for quite some time and with well calculated frequency. As always, volume will bring down the price. We recommend that you request for a media kit from the publication you wish to advertise in. Lastly, the reason we are limiting our presentation to these publications is because of the fact that I have verifiable figure on these magazines. Although there are more bizopp publications out there - including circulars, tabloids, and test-market publications - the absence of concrete numbers prevents us from making a presentation on these publications. Where our staff is concerned these are the big producers. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES HANDBOOK A quarterly publication that lists bizopps. Sells at newsstands for $4.95. Claims a 100,000 circulation, and a FP/BW ad for around $1,200 net. Verdict: OK as a second-stringer. Although this publication does not have a large readership base, it has proven to be a consistent winner. When I sold a $100 product, I would get around 18 to 22 orders per issue. With a $35 product, around 55 to 60. Pays nearly double your money, before you factor in the cost of your fulfillment and the cost of the ad itself. ENTREPRENEUR Terribly expensive, but it works. This magazine costs twice as much as most other publications. If I can only afford one ad for a test-market, Entrepreneur is usually the third or fourth place I would go. I consider Entrepreneur a "necessary evil". (In a very positive way). You have not earned respectability as a bizopp until you've appeared on the pages of Entrepreneur. An interesting perception indeed. This magazine is the "glossy" prince of the bizopp market, sometimes even appearing to be snobbish, particularly to small advertisers. It supports a look that says "... if you're not really serious, get out of the way." Because it has a strong and large readership base, it is difficult, even foolish, to ignore its tremendous selling power. In fact, there are some bizopp readers that you're only going to reach through the pages of Entrepreneur Magazine. But for my dollar, my first impression is that Entrepreneur is simply overpriced! Until their rates become more cost effective for the small "opportunities" advertisers, they can continue to cater to "portfolio" readers and advertisers who want to reach them. INCOME OPPORTUNITIES This magazine stopped publications in February'98, and then resumed in May'98 under a new publisher who promised to bring back the old format, which caters to the widest range across the bizopp playing field. The magazine is well priced at around $5,000 for a FP/BW ad. Although it is beginning to look sleek, IOP continues to maintain its down-home low profile. A very interesting combination that works well among readers. A $100-product I sold through this magazine generated as many as 220 orders with just one issue. That's $22,000 on a $5,000 advertising investment. That's more than four-times (4X) your money. I don't know of any bank that will pay you those returns in just 1 month.I went to a meeting once where I heard this power (slang) advertiser claim he made nearly an 8-to-1 return on a single ad campaign. I was floored. Because there are a lot of power advertisers, you have to fight for position. The longer you stay with the publication, the better placement you receive. A good position is a definite plus! However, as a friend from New York once said, "...the only bad place in IOP is when you're not in the magazine". If I can afford only one publication to test a FP/BW ad, IOP was the first place I went in more than one campaign. In these occasions, IOP proved to be a good bellwether. If your campaign works with IOP readers, you have a better than even chance that it will work with readers of these other bizopp magazines I have featured in this section of the book. MONEY MAKING OPPORTUNITIES A small but consistent money maker. The readership of this publication is combination newsstand and subscription-based, roughly 275,000 per issue, 9 times a year. At around $2,500 net for a FP/BW ad, it is still a good bargain if you have the extra budget to spare. I have experienced getting around 150 orders for a $30 product (total of $4,500) in just one issue. Take note, however, that the shelf life of ads in MMO seem not to hold for very long. Sales drastically go down on the third week of each issue and stay down until it dies out around one week into the following issue. SMALL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY A strong newcomer. Has newsstand integrity and pulls in enough ads to deliver a ratio that can easily compete with other more established magazines. At around $2,800 for FP/BW ad, I have seen months wherein a single issue of SBO has pulled in as much as $9,000 in sales. Now, that's more than three-times (3X) the advertising investment, a pretty decent return for even a small publication.SBO has two alternating publications, Start Your Own Business and Get Rich At Home. These publications appear in the four months of the year when there are no SBOs. These publications are average at best. I recommend that if you consistently place ads in SBO, you negotiate for a substantial discount when placing ads in these other two magazines. SPARE TIME Another consistent money-maker, this magazine is mailed directly to a rotating mailing list of 300,000 "opportunity seekers". At around $3,300 per FP/BW ad, SPT is a good choice when expanding your campaign after a successful test run. The best I have made on SPT is to double my ad cost which may appear awful good, but a tad less than what I expected it to do. It was still a profitable investment, and that is why SPT is in this list.