Find New Customers, Without Breaking the Bank

Ballpark: Ads in The Wall Street Journal’s “Catalog and Online Shopping” section generally run 2 1/2 inches square representing 35 agate lines and will cost about $2,500 to reach 4.1 million readers.

Referrals or M-G-Ms

In the book and record club business, Member-Get-a-Member (M-G-M) was the second most lucrative medium for acquiring customers. (Space ads were No. 1.) Nightingale-Conant, the seminar and self-help company, prints a referral effort on the back of its BREs’ message offering to send a catalog to a friend or relative for free and providing room for two names and addresses. The logic here: The order has been placed, the BRE sealed, so the added request wouldn’t interfere with the ordering process.