Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I do not have the most authority on this subject but I do work with various media that my company buys into. Here are my thoughts regarding a buyers perspective...

This is just a sporadic list of things to consider and places to start in no particular order.

1.) Based on the content of your website, you need to identify who would find value in advertising on your website. This includes major companies but also marketing firms that represent these companies.

2.) Once you identify them, you should consider pitching to them what why it is valuable for them to market on your website. This pitch should create as much value from your site as possible. Use all available metrics to leverage your value. Also present to them the ways they may advertise on your sit. (i.e. sponsored posts, banner ads, newsletter ad placement, etc.)

3.) Before all of this, you need to identify how you are going to charge for advertising. This is where I know the least amount and that others would be able to help you more on. But, identify what competitors in you Market are charging and how they determine that rate.

4.) Another option to make money from your website is through selling market research services. An example would be for "X" amount you will have a pop up survey for users to take and sell this information. Companies are highly interested in consumer data so any insight/data you can offer may increase the value of your ads and who will purchase your services.

I hope this helps and gives you some basic direction.

Are you using Google Adsense (or one of the myriad similar systems)? Because this will give you unlimited supplies of good advertising - especially as you have such a well organized readership.

Because you can start this without any ado. What's more the revenue stream is swift.

Once you have that in place is the time to sit back and discuss ideas about advertising with private clients. That's when Aaron's advice fits in nicely. Of course, you may also find that a few of the cannier marketers who've discovered they're getting good clicks from your site may approach you and pay you more per click, or even a subscription.

Impressive readership and follower numbers. So you should be able to monetize that.

I started a magazine - both print and online - and have been running it for 4 years. It is advertiser supported, not subscription based. So I have had (and in many ways, still have) similar issues to what you are looking at. A while back I wrote a blog pot that talks about this, and may answer some of our questions: https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/ads-in-new-publication.html. Talks about how to price ads and how to sell ads.

I appreciate the advice so far.

We use three different web counters, each has their strengths and weaknesses but using the combination it allows us a little bit of a more accurate count. We keep detailed track of browsers, mobile, countries, time on page(s), what links they enter and leave, etc. Facebook has been the major driving force and we're growing by leaps and bounds in that area.

The little ads for the website (click ads) may be useful, but we are preferring full ads in the actual online magazine. A lot of people suggest putting together an advertising/media kit, and there are plenty enough online to replicate, but how do you get that in front of potential advertisers?

The other option seems to be going out and visiting potential advertisers and trying to sell them ad space. Again that seems like an easy enough solution, but where does the available time come from? When we started this we felt that there was a need, but never anticipated how fast it would grow. Based on similar online magazines our growth has been staggering in comparison.

I've read (online) about using commission only sales staff, but not sure how well that would actually work. If someone has done that successfully, I would like to hear how it was set up and how well it worked.

Peter, if I might add that I suggested Adsense as a stop-gap. I recognize that the earnings are less, they are earnings nonetheless ;-) My idea was only to use it short-term until something had been organized properly.

As mentioned, someone who's found their magazine/site might come forward and offer a better deal that excludes the middleman. Knowing who they are is also important as this could give new ideas in refining the search for private advertisers (ie ones who haven't come through Adsense).

A sort-of reverse-engineering PPC!

Thanks Peter, I'll look into the media bids. This whole process of launching a magazine was in response to what we felt was lacking. The two of us who started this really figured that we would get off to a slow start and could easily manage doing it on our limited time. It's fast becoming a job and very soon the two of us will not be able to keep up with it.

As an example, between 6:30am and 1:30pm today, our facebook page has grown by 1717 fans taking us to almost 45,000 fans in roughly 90 days. Newspapers and magazines are now writing about our magazine and we need to get in front of this before it runs us over.