To cover my newsletter cost ...

I started a little monthly meeting recently of local real estate investors. Initially I only called or emailed about 20 other investors to tell them about these monthly meetings. Only 3 meetings so far, but from the 20 we usually have about 12 show up each month. I'm about to do a mailing to a list of approx 150 other local investors to let them know of the monthly meetings. And of course I'm expecting this will bring more people to my meetings. Something else I want to do, directly related to this, is to put out a monthly newsletter. Now I know most of the gurus say you should put out a monthly newsletter "online", but I'm going to buck the trend and go with a 4 page mailer ... yes, snail mail. I'll put in articles I write myself along with local news and such (no recipes or anything else unrelated to investing). Now here's my question: I want it (the newsletter) to pay for itself. Of course it will pay for itself 100x over with just one real estate deal that comes my way as a result (the 3 meetings have already paid off in other ways) ... what I'm thinking is calling on and then going to visit some local vendors (related to real estate) and letting them advertise their business in my newsletter. My thoughts at this point are that I could include one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper with business card size ads on it. Charging $25 per month per ad? 16 ads total? That covers my cost and allows me to meet/greet/network with even more people. Thoughts? Advice?
Thanks in advance for any input!

Sure sounds like a do-able idea to me! While I think the business card ads could work well, I'd also consider offering people a larger ad - or maybe exclusivity if they buy a larger space.

It's definitely work trying and I'm sure you can easily recover your newsletter costs this way.

Good luck!

Steve

[Ankesh]

Managing 16 advertisers and renewing every month will be a pain.

I would rather recommend 4 advertisers each paying $100 per month. Or $250 for 3 months.

Glad I got everybody's Attention!

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Phil

I'd have to ask, how many of these newsletters were you looking to put out? If it's only a couple hundred, I think you'll be hard pressed to get anyone to spend much $$.

Strangely enough when economic times are hard, most businesses cut their advertising budget first. What money they do spend on ads, will have to be something that gives maximum exposure for their dollar.