Have you ever wondered why some publications — both print and online — enjoy a wealth of advertising support, while others — perhaps yours — barely show a respectable profit?
Maximizing revenues with Internet ad sales doesn’t happen by chance. And it’s not solely the result of great ad sales reps, although well educated ad sales professionals are indispensable.
As our publishing colleague Diane Schwartz of minonline.com says, “From how to structure your sales staff, to how to price your integrated programs, Internet ad sales is a challenge faced by the whole publishing team: marketing, PR, advertising, sales, editorial.”
“Sure, the salesperson needs to close the deal, but others on your team need to create the opportunity, whether it’s outstanding editorial content or a well-navigated site design.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Driving online revenue with optimized ad sales is a deliberate process that requires configuring your infrastructure, content, marketing, research and sales.
A couple months ago, we held one of our best-received webinars called Internet Advertising Basics with Dan Ambrose. Dan has made a career of unraveling and demystifying the complexities of publication ad sales.
He worked on the founding of iVillage.com, About.com, MediaBistro.com, and Beliefnet.com and has consulted with Primedia Magazines, Smithsonian, Children’s Television Workshop, and many others.
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We’ve conjured up several tips from this webinar (which was also a session at the Mequoda Summit in April) to share with you.
Dan’s suggestions on how increase ad impressions with email newsletters:
1. Content in the email newsletter can be set up as “teaser” copy and drive traffic back to the website. This is usually accomplished with a hyper-linked headline and incomplete teaser copy.
2. Make email newsletters part of your advertising package. Launch email newsletters that advertisers will support. Ambrose recommends focusing on your strongest advertising categories first.
Dan’s suggestions for several sponsorship opportunities you can offer your advertisers:
- Channel sponsorship
- Branded tools by the advertisers who “sponsor” them
- White papers for lead generation
- Webinars
Dan’s three steps for selling online advertising to print clients:
First, offer them a package. They are already buying ads in your print product, so the next logical step is to offer them ad space on your website for an increased rate as a “print + online package”. This shouldn’t be a hard sell, so long as you follow the next two steps.
Second, let them be more active. Advertisers get bored with “text links” and “banner ads” very quickly, so come up with new ways for them to increase leads by letting them become more active in your marketing. Let them sponsor contests, interview them for your subscription products, so on and so forth.
Third, offer them a sponsorship opportunity. If you’re looking to really build out your website, offer them the chance to sponsor sections of your website. Sites like RCRWireless.com let advertisers sponsor whole topics, while others like AutoTrader.com let them sponsor online tools. Still, some, like Computerworld.com offer their advertisers “Zones” where they can give away a free report in exchange for email leads that go directly to the advertiser.
Want to learn more from this 90-minute Internet advertising seminar for publishers?
We have two options for you.
You can get this seminar delivered to you on CD-ROM, complete with video presentation, slides in PDF format, and Dan’s two worksheets:
- Advertiser Schedule Flowchart – An easily customized Internet Advertising Sales Proposal Sheet and Hybrid Media Flowchart.
- Content Traffic Revenue Factors – A worksheet that will show you the cumulative effect of improving 5 factors by only 10% each that increases revenue opportunity by 89%.
Or, you can register for Mequoda Pro today—for the same price—and start watching the seminar and downloading the worksheets this afternoon.
In addition to the Internet Advertising Basics online seminar, with Mequoda Pro you’ll also receive TEN BONUS 30-60 minute business-building sessions for publishers, editors and online marketers.
Register for Mequoda Pro now and start watching Internet Advertising Basics instantly!
