Authors who create, write, edit and design a beautiful magazine want to provide readers with regular, memorable content. But delivering unique and meaningful content on a recurring basis can be a challenge since many magazine creators may be talented writers, expert photographers, or even skilled graphic designers – but likely not all three.
Magazine authors usually turn to magazine advertising space for a revenue boost to help offset production costs that go into creating and printing each edition of a magazine. Well-designed magazines that fill a specific niche are always in demand, so it’s no surprise that magazines are popular with both readers and advertisers, but getting the most out of your magazine advertising is key to increasing the potential revenue you can bring in.
Potential Advertiser and Your Niche
Magazines with in-demand content are a gold mine for potential advertisers but magazine creators have to position their publication correctly to ensure that magazine advertising revenue will eventually materialize.
The four ways that magazine creators can help sell magazine advertising space to businesses all revolve around the benefits of print magazine advertising.
- Geographic Target: Most businesses have a well-defined target audience but due to budgeting constraints, their marketing may not be able to connect with all of them. Magazines, however, may secure subscribers from any location. This unrestricted potential is appealing to businesses who want to expand their reach to different geographic areas to reach a greater portion of their target audience.
- Instant Credibility: Print magazine advertising sways consumer opinion in a more convincing manner than digital or online advertising can. Businesses love to utilize print ads because of the instant credibility they provide. Consumers are wary of online companies comprised of little more than a business owner and a garage full of merchandise but print advertising adds legitimacy to businesses that may be not as well known to customers but are eager to make a connection to their target customers.
- Narrow Focus: Businesses spend their marketing dollars on advertisements that have a good chance of reaching their target customer. And magazine advertising that shares some or all of the same target customers is an ideal way to make sure that their marketing money will be well spent.
- Long Lasting: Unlike digital or online ads that disappear when their contractual due date expires, magazine advertising lasts indefinitely.
Bringing In Revenue with Magazine Advertising
By following a few steps to prepare your magazine’s pitch to potential advertisers, your magazine can begin benefitting from magazine advertising revenue. When you craft an intentional plan to show off how a business can profit by partnering with your publication, your magazine advertising space will fill up quickly.
1. Develop a Media Kit
The first step is to prepare the media kit that you will be provided to all of your potential advertisers. The kit is a comprehensive look at your magazine to give businesses insight into what makes your publication unique and stand out from other magazines with a similar focus.
Magazines still building their subscription numbers can name competing publications to help project future success as well as demonstrate the size of the potential readership for their magazine. The kit should define your magazine’s target reader, current and projected distribution, the method of distribution and publication dates. A media kit should also clearly indicate magazine advertising costs and advertising options.
Helpful Hint: If you have a mockup of your magazine to show them, include that in your media kit so prospective advertisers can get a look at how your final, polished publication is expected to look. Just a few pages of content and a potential cover can show businesses the professional look and feel of your magazine and may entice them to be a part of it pre-launch.
2. Match Your Niche with Businesses
Your whole magazine, from editorials to photo layouts to design elements is curated to project a specific tone and feel for your readers who are looking for content within your publication’s niche.
When searching for advertisers for your publication, your magazine’s focus or niche should drive your discovery of potential businesses to target. The businesses you shortlist as potential advertisers should share some aspect of your magazine’s focus so the readers of your publication will find the magazine advertising useful, helpful, or relevant to their interest in your magazine.
Possible Pairings
- Fitness publications could seek advertisers in food stores, gyms, natural health businesses, or fitness equipment providers
- Literary magazines could target educational companies, art businesses, schools, or historical societies
- Nature photography publications could seek advertisers with a focus on sustainability, photography, and video supplies or gardening equipment
3. Initiate Contact with Potential Advertisers
Once you have narrowed down your list, begin contacting prospective advertisers directly. Email or call them and ask if you can send your media kit so they can learn about your publication and see if advertising with you would be a good fit for their marketing goals.
Follow up with warm leads to set up a discussion about your magazine and provide further details about how your target reader aligns with their target customer. Remember that your communication with a business lays the groundwork for a possible business partnership.
And your interactions will help to build trust and confidence in you as well as the success of your publication.
Helpful Hint: Be respectful of the business’s time during this stage and their response (or lack thereof) to your emails. Repeatedly emailing a business can be construed as spam and will paint your magazine in a negative light.
4. Make it Tempting
Even though you have included advertising details in your media kit, think about tempting potential advertisers with special deals for jumping on board with you based on different types of participation. You will want to make sure that your tempting offers don’t come off as desperation to secure advertisers, however.
Pick one or two special deals that will appeal to prospective advertisers and be sure to let companies know when you are no longer offering a special when a quota has filled up because that will show companies that your magazine’s ad space is in demand.
- Consider including an offer for the first ten or twenty businesses that agree to place an advertisement in your magazine.
- Include a savings opportunity for businesses who invest in magazine advertising right away, offering them a one-time price reduction to increase the possibility they will want to buy more advertising with you in the future.
- Think about sweetening the deal for those companies who commit to longer terms by buying more than one ad. Increase the discounts with volume purchases.
Helpful Hint: For startup magazines with no publication history, cutting your prices for first-time advertisers can go a long way. Since your media kit may be the only material a business has to base its decision on, your interactions with each business will be a critical piece in its decision-making process. Be sure to put your tempting offers down formally and include them inside of your media kit for prospective advertisers to see.
5. Deliver a Quality Magazine
No one wants to professionally tie themselves to a business or publication that is not top-notch, so make sure that you are producing a quality magazine right from the start. Partnering with a trusted printer like Dazzle Printing will ensure that your magazine will look just as amazing as you imagined. Magazine creators can order small or large quantities of their publication when they are needed without being stuck with a huge minimum order.
Since your printing needs can grow with your magazine’s circulation, you can focus on creating a gorgeous magazine and securing advertisers to increase your revenue without having to pay for a large printing quantity before you are ready. New magazine creators can also work with Dazzle Printing to print a handful of magazine mockups to include with a media kit if the advertising push happens before the magazine’s official launch date.
Magazine Advertising Success
Delivering a well-designed printed magazine backed by targeted advertisers can increase your publication’s usefulness to the reader. When your magazine’s content is appealing to readers because the advertising supports their interests and relates to what they like to do, where they like to shop and improves their lives in some way, readers will transfer those positive feelings to your magazine as well.
Not only will you increase revenue by targeting and selling businesses on partnering with your magazine for their print marketing needs, but you will also help to grow your magazine’s readership with advertising that directly enhances your target audiences’ lives.
