If you are promoting your business through advertising, you may want to consider buying remnant or surplus advertising. Remnant advertising is the unsold ad space, which often goes to public service or gone forever. Media companies, from radio, newspaper, magazine even TV, do not always sell their advertising space — so they sell these spaces often at steep discounts. And tapping these remnant ad spaces can be an effective and inexpensive strategy for your business.

For newspaper and magazine advertising, you can check the remnant spaces available at MediaBids http://www.mediabids.com . Looking through the available ad spaces, Business 2.0’s half page ad is available for a discount of $4540. A full page ad at Entrepreneur Magazine can save you more than $12,000 from their usual rate.

Access to information on remnant space is tightly controlled, so there are no similar marketplaces for radio or television that I know of. Though I know that remnant spaces for radio are discounted by 25 to 75% off retail prices.

If you advertise on these medium regularly, check with your media contact how to be able to buy remnant ad space. Just be ready with the creatives fast when a remnant space opens up. But buying these surplus ad spaces is one way you can stretch your marketing dollars.