Marketing experts have claimed for years that print’s days are over. The truth is, despite what you hear from naysayers, for many industries, print ads are still very effective for achieving certain marketing goals.
If you are an association that continues to produce your industry magazines, you’ve likely faced more expensive paper and postage costs. So while print advertising may no longer be every marketer’s go-to tool, you need advertising revenue to offset the increased costs. Therefore, associations must provide and communicate value to their advertisers.
We've identified six actions you should take to make your print advertising opportunities more attractive to your advertisers and generate more revenue from your offerings:
- Create print + digital packages. Advertisers don’t have to pick one or the other and hope they guessed correctly where they’ll reach their audience. With creatively designed advertising packages, they can reach their entire audience wherever they are. Advertisers with small budgets can maximize their exposure by selecting packages at key times throughout the year.
- Offer advertorials. Advertorials (paid ads designed to look like news articles) are a great opportunity for advertisers to really tell their story and educate their audience on their services.
- Develop themed issues. Review your editorial content–are you using broad industry trends to your advantage? Themed issues that will appeal to advertisers and are much easier to sell because it’s very clear what the content will be. For example, if you’re an outdoor equipment association, can you release a summer guide and a winter guide that advertisers of those products would jump to be a part of? Plan well ahead and release a detailed editorial calendar.
- Increase your advertising rates. Sounds counterintuitive for bringing more advertisers in, right? And your first reaction might be that your current advertisers will get upset. Here’s the secret: you don’t have to charge everyone the same rate. Feel free to grandfather in rates for older advertisers or negotiate the price as appropriate and charge the new rate to new advertisers who haven’t built up loyalty yet.
- Build your advertiser database. Your pool of potential advertisers should always be growing. Prospect for new clients at your own events and other industry events to build a robust database. Think about where and when you’ll be prospecting for new advertisers as you plan your editorial calendar and time-themed issues. It’s ideal to sell a themed issue to a prospect right then and there, during the event.
- Beware of negative content. Your publication doesn’t have to be all puff and fluff pieces, but keep in mind that it is definitely harder to sell ad space against negative content. No advertiser wants to be placed next to something controversial. So, if you are covering a tough topic, think about ways you can incorporate solutions or positive takeaways into the article.
Print advertising works for many advertisers, but they need to be confident that your magazine is worth their investment. Knowing your advertisers and your member audience and pairing up their needs will convey the value and keep your print advertising offering going strong.
