Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi,

I would recommend that, you can get a very good idea about advertsing rates from the competing Online Website, with whom you are going to compete. At the same time, you can get rate card from the magazines, which will also help you great deal. So, no need of reinventing the wheel.

One thumb rule for charging for advertisement is, it all depends upon the answers of following questions which will interest the advertisers:
1. How many subscriber base you are having?
2. What is the profile of the readers?
3. What are their demographics?

I hope this will be of some help to you.

Swap

Dear isabako,

You're "starting" your site? That's the first red flag. It's "going to be" a monthly magazine. That's the second red flag.

"Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!" Isabako, PLEASE ... before you do ANYTHING else you need to forget about advertising and you need to slow down.

No, actually, you need to STOP.

Here's why:

Before you begin counting your ad revenue you need to review your direction, you need to figure out EXACTLY what you'll be offering, and you need to plan out several months' worth of content.

You may not like this but I'm telling you this for your own good.
Shoot the messenger if you want to but that won't do you any good.

This opinion, harsh though it may be will, if you pay attention to
it, save you a lot of time, a great deal of trouble, and weeks of heartache.

If you ignore the advice here, in my post and elsewhere, your progress will be slow at best.

This means at some point, you'll do what so many other online start ups do: you'll flounder, you'll falter, you'll become frustrated because you're not making the massive headway you believe is yours by right, and you'll quit—just weeks before you break through and begin to see modest results.

When it comes to advertisers you need to accept some grim
news: ad expenditure is down for advertisers spending money on established sites and in magazines.

What does this mean? It means that for you, as a start up, you, alas, you have little to offer but good intentions. This means your ability to attract top advertisers is going to be limited.

For advertisers to spend money with you you must first set up certain points to attract them. If you build your site on the basis
of "build it and they will come" you stand a high chance of failing.

To attract advertisers you must DELIVER certain things (namely: readers, regular monthly visitors numbers, returning eyeballs, context, content, and quality, all of which build reader loyalty)
and until or unless you can deliver those things, few advertisers will work with you.

For advertisers to spend money with you there MUST be some return and this return must be GUARANTEED. It works like this:

You produce content that people want to read.

Your content is good enough to bring people back to your site again and again.

As this happens your readership begins to grow.

When readership grows, your page rankings increase and traffic builds.

You establish links to other sites and those sites link back to you.

This in turn builds your credibility, attracts more readers, and increases the amount of traffic arriving and linking to and from your site.

All this happens BEFORE you approach Dior, Gucci and the other
big names.

Why?

Because until you can attract large numbers of readers few major advertisers will hitch their wagon to you because you have nothing to offer them.

Think about it.

Where there are eyeballs, there are people willing to spend money. And where there are people willing to spend money, there are advertisers. HOWEVER, until there are eyeballs there will be few if any advertisers. And building a loyal following TAKES TIME.

If I'm to bring my major fashion label to your site you must give me people who are willing and ready to click on my banners and on my ads. If you can't do this I won't come near your site and I won't pay you a dime.

BUT ... all is not lost.

IF you are willing to offer me TERMS for free space for a trail period, a period in which I can gauge the possible effectiveness of my ads on your new site, THEN I might think about offering to pay for space on a month-to-month basis.

But, as your advertiser, the terms you offer me must be in my favor, not yours.

If you want to keep me sweet, you must offer me great terms. And if you want to retain my business, you must deliver eyeballs and clicks to my banners, all of which I'll be tracking to see what sticks and what does not.

So, does this mean the advertiser holds all the aces? Er? Yes.
It does. Or, it does mean that until you can offer solid evidence that you can deliver "X" number of potential banner hits per
month because your site pulls in X thousand visitors per month.

To figure all THAT out you need to sit down and figure out a business plan and a marketing plan.

All highly tedious I know but look at it this way: when you decide to go off on vacation, you look at brochures, you figure out where you're going to go, where you'll stay, and how you'll get there.

You also figure out how long you'll stay, what you might do while you're there, and how much money you'll need. You then book tickets, make reservations, and arrange transport. You possibly buy a guidebook, sort out what you'll wear and you pack a bag.

You DO NOT just turn up at the airport and jump on the first plane you see, do you? Well, yes, some people DO do this, but most people don't. Planning a business is NO DIFFERENT and as dull as this might sound, that old cliché is true "When you fail to plan, you must plan on failing."

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Sometimes my colleagues can come across as a bit negative. They are not saying you shouldn't try to start this, but giving some warnings/challenging you have to overcome.

Advertising rates are set based on number and quality of people who view the ads. If you get media kits from magazines, you will see all sorts of information about who is reading it (age, income, etc.). Online sites also have this similar info - using all the information gained through website hit counters.

Your challenge is that you don't have this information yet. Because you don't have a history of readership, you will need to sell advertisers on the story behind why your magazine will be read - the big name contributors and such.

Seeing what competitors charge is a good way to base your ad rates. But for the first few issue, you may need to discount considerably to get advertisers on board. After this, you should have the track record of readership which can then be used to sell the ads and support the ad rates.

If the site is online, then your costs are minimal. Start by offering ads for FREE. The goal is to measure clickthru rates, CPM, and attract other (paid) advertisers (who see their competition advertising). Work on building traffic/content first. Then work on selling the advertising. You've gotten a lot of great suggestions - we want you to succeed.

My colleagues are providing very sound advice here that should allow you to develop realistic expectations and plan accordingly.

I would add three things -

First, remember that stealing from one is plaigirism while stealing from many is research. Gather up all of the advertiser pitch packages you can find (and they are plentiful on the web, look at the website of any established print magazine) and see what ROI they offer, how they position themselves, how they structure their rates, etc. and use the best ideas to formulate your own materials.

Second, you are honest enough to admit that you know "next to nothing' about marketing. It takes a smart person to admit they don't know something. Now, you either have to become an expert or partner/hire/dragoon an expert into giving you the extensive and ongoing help you will need to succeed. This forum is wonderful, but not a subsitute for a full-time marketing prof.

Third, it may help you to think of things from the other side of the fence. Imagine your magazine is up and running and highly successful. A guy comes to you trying to sell you commercial time on a new TV station -- it isn't on the air yet, but he promises it will be great. Would you not tell him to come back when he's actually got programs, viewers, etc.? That is the way advertisers will look at you right now. You will need some real dynamite reasons for them to get on the train before it leaves the station.

Having said all of that, let me join with the others in encouraging you to pursue your passion. Best of luck!