Questions a year later on national advertisers!

Hi All,

This is my first post here and I'll start by telling you a few things about myself and my publication. My name is Daniel and I am 26 years old and launched my first publication last year. I publish a free-distribution monthly fishing/boating magazine that covers the "Jersey Shore" area. The circ. is 10,000.

While being generally miserable working for a newspaper after graduating college, I daydreamed about creating a magazine about what I love and after over the course of a few months decided to actually give it a go. I created a layout, figured out how to get content each month and printed a test issue. I signed on some initial advertisers to cover the printing cost and worked out where the pub. would be distributed. I was a bit worried going into our first summer season, but luckily I began to get calls from new advertisers who saw the publication and wanted in. All things considered, I had a nice first year! I'm no millionaire by any means, but I made some money (enough for what a side business should bring in) and am overall pretty happy.

That said, since my advertisers are mainly seasonal businesses, my ad revenue drops to almost nil during the fall/winter. A lot of people have suggested I go after larger business and national advertisers. The only issue is that I have absolutely no idea where to start. I tried contacting a few potential national advertisers and was referred to an advertising agency. I would send them my materials, and never hear back. Tried following up, but never got through to anyone. Basically a big run-around. Is there anything I'm missing, or do these types of advertisers just not want to deal with a smaller regional publication?

Also, any tips for non-national (but still very big) businesses such as large boat dealerships would be appreciated. I really would love to step up my game and bring in some bigger businesses to the fold.

Thanks for any tips!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by 6thAveConcepts on February 10, 2010 at 9:32am: I don't have any experience in finding advertisers. I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say about this.

Are you wanting to produce issues monthly all year? Is it possible to cut back a little in the off-season? I helped put out a monthly tourism/community magazine. In the off season the issues were combined. We'd have an issue every month from spring to fall but Nov/Dec would be a combined issue, Jan/Feb combined and Mar/Apr combined. This was still considered a monthly publication but saved 3 months of cost.

Are you offering any discounts for long-term advertisers? $X per issue ad, 5% off if you advertise in 3 issues (or 6 or whatever) and 10% off if you advertise all year. Is there any incentive in advertising in your publication in the off-season?

Fishing/boating? Where are you located? Is there any ice-fishing going on in your circulation area? Would articles like this attract advertisers? What about equipment/supplies? Maybe snowmobile and ATV ads? Gotta get to the ice/water somehow.

Just spit-balling ideas here.

Welcome to the community!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Arlissa Vaughn on February 14, 2010 at 12:04am: I have been using some Pay-per-Call advertising in my publication. Essentially, these are big national advertisers who pay you based on the performance of the ad rather than a set fee. If the ad produces a lot of phone calls or website hits for them, then they pay you a certain percentage. They have individual phone numbers and web links placed only in your publication in order to identify where the call originated. It's a quick way to get extra advertisers and begin launching a national campaign. I use MediaBids to obtain them.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Donna "The Webmistress" on June 3, 2010 at 5:08pm: The first thing Ad Agencies want from me is a Media Kit. They want to see the demographics, income level, circulation etc.; ▶ Reply to This