Help predict magazine ad projections for educational science toy

I designed a flying toy for the educational specialty toy market which
the bottom has dropped out of.

It's hard to distribute because reps are not interested in single
products because it's too much trouble. The reps I've had have been
terrible.

I have a nice web site, www.flipaloft.com. and I'd like to sell toys
from the site. But.. I have already tried the google ad-words
campaign and it hasn't generated a single sale.

The problem with the marketing ideas is that the toy only costs only
14.95, but online advertising costs more than that per customer.

I'm thinking of trying some magazine advertising?
If I put a 1/6th page ad for 500 dollars in Bay Area Parent Magazine,
or the National Science Teachers Association magazine, how many sales
could I expect?


I know for direct mail it's supposed to be from 0 to 2 percent. But
what is the average for 1/6 page magazine advertisments???

Thank You
Daniel Savage
www.flipaloft.com

"dan" <whimsica@aol.com> wrote in message
news:bfa6cp025on@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> I designed a flying toy for the educational specialty toy market which
> the bottom has dropped out of.

I've read your email and I've looked at your page. What I'm getting is that
you invented a product and took it into production, but now you can't sell
it and you're hoping that a magazine ad is going to save your investment.

Obviously, you didn't get where you are overnight. Its been a while since
you had the idea, created the prototype, etc. As you were going through all
of this, you did one of two things: you did the work that you should have
done, such as learning all about sales and marketing, and performing market
research. OR, you fell in love with your idea, busted your butt putting the
product out on the market, and totally ignored the single most important
aspect of your business, how *exactly* to make sales, until it was too late.
(I suspect the latter.)

What you need to do is back up a few steps. You need to do some market
research, you need to look at your competitors, you have to come up with a
valid marketing plan, etc. You may find that you have to make significant
changes to your product, or you may find that your idea is no good at all
(from a marketing perspective).

Take a look at http://willitsell.com -- that's a pretty good place to start.
You should also take a look Harvey Reese's page and the service he provides
at http://money4ideas.com .

Best of Luck!

Mike

> What you need to do is back up a few steps. You need to do some market
> research, you need to look at your competitors, you have to come up with a
> valid marketing plan, etc. You may find that you have to make significant
> changes to your product, or you may find that your idea is no good at all
> (from a marketing perspective).

Yur right about that. I want to repackage it for the mass market, but
I need to get rid of an overstock of specialty packaged toys. It was
selling fairly well in the specialty stores, but reps were horrible
--I've heard from many manufacturers that unless you have a line of
toys, reps are useless --In other words, I need to hire my own reps.
In the meanwhilst, I'm looking for a way to direct people to the nice
web site I built a while back so I can sell them there also.

I'm looking into writing articles, newspaper classifieds, magazine
ads, etc...

Thanks,

Dan
www.flipaloft.com