The Rate Card Introduction Basic calculations Frequency discounts Volume discounts Combination discounts Modular rates Contracts Ad agencies Market info Readership and Circ. Promotional messages Co-op information Color charges Electronic ads Deadlines Special sections Column widths Line screens Odd sizes Legal disclaimers Ad acceptance guidelines Billing and Credit 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 prospect  • 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

Now, to make things even more complicated, some newspapers combine the volume and frequency discounts. Instead of giving the same discount to someone who is running a 2x6 for 13 weeks as someone running a 5x14 for 13 weeks, the account running the larger ad gets an even bigger discount.

Since now there's two variables, this naturally results in all sorts of configurations, and the rates in the rate card are shown in a grid. You'll see a combination frequency and volume discount on this page. If you've ever tried to find your ideal weight on one of those charts where you have to run down one column to find your height displayed and then move across to the right until you find your age and where the two intersect is your ideal weight, then you're familiar with these types of tables. If you can't see the table below, widen your window or scroll down.

In our example, the total amount of column inches runs down the left hand side and the frequency the advertiser is willing to commit to runs along the top row. Simply match the two up and where the columns and rows intersect, that's the rate. For example, if an advertiser runs any size smaller than 100 column inches, one time, then he is charged the open rate of $50 per column inch. The more times he runs that ad, the more the price goes down, so if he runs the ad 52 times, the rate will go down to $42.

Using the example, see if you can find the rate for an advertiser agreeing to run 1,000 column inches 26 times. Now find the rate for an advertiser agreeing to run 750 column inches 4 times. You get the idea. Most of the rate cards you'll encounter will contain rate grids that fall into one of these three categories. If you can read the sample ones in this lesson, you should have no problem with your own. In many cases, you'll find that for the different products you sell, the discounts may work in different ways, but they all should fall into one of the categories I mentioned.
 

Next: Modular rates