[megsmom]

Hi
Im wondering if I could get some ideas on newspapers to advertise in that dont require an attorney letter??? anyone have ideas please? thank you!

[Nelson]

I get asked quite a lot about newspaper advertising. I know many lawyers recommend it to their clients, and I have heard of a few people who have connected with EPs that way. I must confess I'm not a big fan of the practice.

First, it's very expensive. I have friends who have spent as much as $4000 placing two-line ads in a dozen or so Sunday classifieds across the nation for two weeks and gotten not a peep. That seems like a lot of money for a shot in the dark, tiny little ad that can't say much more than "we want to adopt."

Secondly, I believe that generally–and I know I’m making some assumptions here–the sort of EP who would be searching for help in a Sunday paper is one who is rather estranged from the social support system that exists, in a fairly accessible way, in most communities. While I'm fully aware that many EPs are in this situation, if you choose to advertise in papers you should also be prepared–financially, emotionally, and mentally–for dealing with a more resource intensive-adoption process.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I strongly believe that your goal as a PAP is to connect with the EP who is right for you, not just any one. Your chances of doing that are greatly enhanced if the person who calls you already knows something about you, i.e. has read your letter or been referred to you by someone who knows you.

To really break this topic down, I have to speak in marketing terms. I know this upsets people, but when you start talking about advertising or outreach, marketing considerations do come into play. I’m not talking about “writing to persuade” or “selling yourself.” That’s a level of mercantile, inauthentic thinking that I believe is inappropriate to the adoption process. But the reality is that you only have so much money, so much time, and so much emotional life you can expend on this part of your life. Everyone approaching this journey has to take stock of these resources to see how and where they are best spent.

So for each outreach initiative, you must balance its cost (emotional, financial, temporal), its effectiveness (what kind of information you get out and how many people see it), and the results (what sort of connections you make with your intended audience).

If I were in sales (and I used to be), I would break down the people who respond to my outreach as “hot leads,” “warm leads” and “cold leads.” In my mind, someone who calls me from a 2 line ad that says “we want to adopt” is a cold lead. They know nothing about me specifically. They are just reaching out to someone, anyone, who can help them. A warm lead would be someone who has read something about me–my DBML, my web site, a sign I posted–but may not have yet formally entered the process of making an adoption plan, meaning s/he hasn’t called a lawyer or agency, hasn’t been vetted by anyone, has no proof of pregnancy that I know of, etc. Hot leads, it follows, not only knows something about me specifically, but has also taken some concrete steps toward making an adoption plan.

By this way of thinking, you must understand that the colder the lead, the more resources it will take to make a strong connection with them, the sort of connection that will lead to a successful placement. Resources such as time spent talking on the phone, getting paperwork filled out, getting proper medical care, and all the other steps in the process. All of those steps require an emotional investment, and obviously, the more steps between meeting and placement, the greater the chances that the process will go awry, and usually, the greater the financial cost of the adoption.

Which gets me back to newspaper ads, but also outreach more generally. I think newspaper advertisements, even if they are successful, generate very cold leads. I believe that your best chance of connecting with an expectant parent who is right for you is to put yourself out there authentically and genuinely. So even if you have all the time, money, and emotional resilience in the world, I still think it would be vastly wasted on random, shotgun approaches like classified advertisements.

Classified advertising is on some level a throwback to the days–not so long ago–when the average person had few affordable options for communicating beyond their local circle of connections. We now live in a wired world, and the threshold of access to those wires is very low. Almost anyone from any part of the socio-economic spectrum can distribute and access incredible amounts of information with relative ease.

I believe your time, love, and money are better spent of ways to get your genuine communication–namely, your DBMLetter–out into the world. More fruitful than Sunday classifieds, the “friends and family network,” local organizational outreach, personal web sites, online registries, business cards, and all the other similar great ideas on this board all provide fairly cost-effective ways of communicating something comprehensive about who you are.
Thus you will be reaching out in a genuine manner, sharing something real about yourself. When the phone rings, you will have already sparked a flame of real interest in the person on the other end of the phone. In this warmth, your chance of really connecting with that person is going to be greatly enhanced.

[megsmom]

Nelson.
Thank you for the "advice" I do have a web site, business cards and the other things you mention such as word of mouth- however I know that the classified ads do work, as I know of many that have adopted this way- yes it can be spendy but also CAN work.
I belive you need to use all areas of "geting the word out" to adopt. And your right our world is "wired" these days and that's the reason my web site is included in my ads.
Thank you for taking the time to write your opion, I do read your post here with the suggestions for locating a pbmom they are great- but I just cant rule out the classified ads to get the word out.

[Coley]

I did not find my son's adoptive parents from a newspaper ad - however, I do remember reading the personal ads for kicks and seeing adoption ads in there years earlier. When I did meet my son's a parents and we decided to move forward we needed an attorney. I remembered the name of the attorney mentioned in an ad (he had a distinctive name LOL) and thats the attorney we used!

Ok - kinda wierd story- but there are people who read them, see them, and maybe a few who respond.

~ Coley

[Nelson]

The more general subject of newspaper ads comes up a lot and I used your post to tee off on the subject in general. It sounds like you've thought through the issues thoroughly. I hope everyone else does the same. Too many people I've spoken to have invested the majority of their resources in those ads as a first resort at the suggestion of an adoption professional and been left high and dry.

I'm very interested in other responses. Can anyone on the board report success from classified advertising?

[Nelson]

I might investigate personal ads in the alternative weeklys, like New Times, the LA Weekly, Villiage Voice, Boston Phoenix, etc. most decent sized cities have one, ads are probably a lot cheaper than the big Sunday dailies, and they generally appeal to a younger demographic.

Just a thought.

[djp03]

Hi megsmom and Nelson,

I agree with Nelson that putting out an ad with no web site is a cold lead. I also would not put out an ad in a nation wide paper b/c of the cost and the fact that I can't imagine anyone reading a teeny tiny ad.

We advertised for a few months in college papers in our area and only put our web site and email address to avoid prank calls. I know of one women who went into our agency from that ad.

You may want to consider putting ads in small town papers in your home state. In Minnesota many of those papers come out once a week. The classifieds are prominent and everyone reads them. (and in a small town everyone knows when someone is pregnant!)

Just a thought
M

[Katedrew]

This is a really interesting discussion. Nelson, I agree it would be better to connect with a birthmother through friends and family than through a classified ad. However, my husband and I have been networking with friends and family for a year and have gotten ZERO leads from this. Meanwhile, we've been running classified ads in Pennysavers for 6 months and have gotten several leads (although none have worked out so far). We send friends and family letters about about our adoption plans along with our flyer with our baby phone number. But friends and family often tell us they don't know any potential birthmothers and doubt they ever would come into contact with such a person. We then have to educate them (tell your friends who are teachers, students, doctors, nurses, anyone you know, etc., etc.) With some friends/family I wonder if they've told anyone at all. And when we tell some friends/family about our plans, they want to know why we aren't doing international adoption. I think that because domestic adoption isn't as visible as international adoption, people think it doesn't exist.
So does anyone have any advice about talking to family and friends about adoption networking?

[tobeafamily]

Katie,

If you haven't already, send them copies of "Adoption is a Family Affair: What Friends and Family Must Know" by Patricia Irwin Johnston. This book is well worth the investment!

We found networking most successful when:

A) We asked people for help in specific ways - i.e. gave them business cards and asked them to leave them at ATM machines, in restrooms, with tips at restaurants, on gas pumps, etc. Another example: asked them to put a flyer up in their car window.

We made sure everyone knew how to get more cards if they wanted them, but did not push beyond the intial "Ten cards you can leave to help Steve & Regina" campaign.

B) We created an e-mail list. We updated this list every few weeks or every time we got a contact, whichever came first. This is how we connected with Ryan's bfamily. One of our list members, a friend/former co-worker, had just gotten an update from us, then heard that her step-daughter was pregnant and wanted to make an adoption plan. She said it was like a lightbulb went off - we were so fresh in her mind.

We were surprised honestly at how some we'd never thought would be big helps ended up leaving hundreds of cards and others we'd expected to do a lot, didn't.

Remember that people are internally motivated different ways - some are motivated by the ability to achieve or win, some are motivated by the ability to dig in to details, and some are motivated by the opportunity to help.

Hang in there, HTH

Regina