Welcome! Introduction Best Accounts to Choose Common Mistakes Gathering Info Securing Artwork Determining Ad Size Attention Grabber Benefit Headline Copy Other Elements Producing the Ad The fastest way to increase sales! Participate in this award-winning, newspaper-specific ad sales course on-site or in a Webinar.  • Get past upfront stalls and objections without any pushing  • Make the account believe he really needs you  • Get better information from your prosepct  • Develop quick ad strategies that work the very first time  • Eliminate size, frequency, content, cost and most other objections before they ever arise  • Get dramatic responses for all kinds of advertisers  • Never have to push an advertiser to run again click here

Sketch out the spec ad and attach the copy and artwork just like a live ad. You'll probably also have to fill out a spec ad request form.

It may be the same form you usually use to reserve space, or it may be a variation on this form that's more targeted to spec ads. In either case, these forms are usually pretty basic and straightforward, asking for your name, the account name, the ad size you'd like, and usually some general questions about the advertiser.

Fill this form out, attach your rough layout, but make it clear somewhere on the form that the artist should keep the graphic and headline big and at the top, but to be creative and use their own judgment.

Unlike when you send a live ad though to production where everything must be followed exactly because that's what the advertiser agreed upon, with a spec ad you want to give the artists some latitude.

The rough layout you give to the artists should reflect how you would design the ad if you didn't have any artists to work on it. The artist will then try to make it look better.

One trick I often used was to scour newspapers (especially the biggest ones in my and adjacent markets) to see what the pros were doing. Every day, the top designers at the best ad agencies display their work in newspapers and other print publications, giving you insight into the latest layout and design trends. Find ads that have the look and feel that you want in your ad and pass them along with your spec ad to your artists.

By the way, you might be working for a newspaper that doesn't have any artists to create spec ads for you. That's OK. Personally, I'd rather be selling a mediocre-looking ad with a great strategy than a beautifully ineffective ad.

Some of the biggest sales I've made were from ads I just sketched out myself. While some salespeople believe that they can't sell specs if they don't have a good artist available, this simply isn't true. In my experience it's sometimes the salespeople who don't pass the ads off to an artist but instead create the entire ad themselves--or at least detailed strategies--that can better explain the effectiveness of the ad to the prospect and make the sale.

Once you send it through to an artist, it should take anywhere from a few days to a week to get it back. At some newspapers it could take up to two weeks. If you find yourself going in and conducting a great first sales call with an advertiser only to have your art department tell you that it'll be two weeks before they'll finish it, then you might want to consider just sketching out the elements yourself and bringing that in. You'd hate for the sale to cool off for too long, or risk having one of your competitors come in and make the sale.

As for selling the spec ad, we'll be covering that later when we go over the basics of a sales call.

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