Here's the scenario.  A large general topic magazine that reaches 1.5 million people charges $15,000 for a full page ad while a small magazine, targeted exactly to your market, with a 100,000 reach, charges $6,000 for a full page ad.  That's .01 per reader (the big mag) vs .06 per reader (the little guy).  You're paying the little guy six times more money for their targeted traffic, but will you get six times the results?

 

This really depends on your product.  If you were selling gun ammunition, you would get killed if you advertised in a general topic magazine.  Obviously some type of "gun or hunting mag" would be your first choice.  For me with my fashion accessories business, results were all over the map.  I had major general magazines that did great and some that did poorly; and the same could be said for the smaller niche magazines.


One fact you can't get around is that a large number of readers gives you a better potential for success.  It doesn't mean you will succeed, but if you find a two million readership mag that brings back a 1% response rate, it would kill a 100,000 readership magazine that brought back even a 5% response rate.  You need less of a response rate when there are more readers.  For this reason alone, overall I would say I did better in the bigger magazines with the large readerships.  When they did well, they did REALLY WELL!