Sarasota Herald Tribune 6-15-11

I used to advertise my business in the fitness section of the Sarasota Herald Tribune. This section came out every Tuesday. A quarter page ad was resonable. It cost me $225.00 and I ran it two or three times a month. For two years, the ads consistently got great results. The ad did not do too badly during this past season, either. In April, I received some bad news from my ad rep. The paper had raised my rate from $225 per insertion to $350!! This amounted to a mind-numbing 64% increase. Did I receive an ad that was 64% larger? Well, no, I did not. Did they propose to place the ad on the front page of the fitness section? No, it would still be buried in the back somewhere. While I pondered this new pricing structure, I okayed one more ad. It came out on a Tuesday morning. Nothing happened, no calls...nada, zero, zilch...just crickets. I decided I had better begin to do some research and find out why...to be continued