Advertising

As well as generating income, advertisements serve a wide range of other purposes – let’s just consider these before moving on to ways of using advertising to raise funds:

• They add variety. Advertisements break up the editorial copy. They do this in various ways; for example, they may be different in style from the text of the magazine and they may be different in content if they cover areas not specifically included in editorial items.
• They provide information. Advertisements give readers useful details regarding products, services, and so forth. Although generally designed to produce benefits for the people and organisations placing them, they often contain useful information which can have value both to potential purchasers and to others interested in issues and trends relating to a particular topic.
• They act as promotion. You may include advertisements for the organisation that produces, or sponsors, your magazine; this will help gain attention and carry their messages to a wider audience.

What Is An Advertisement?

You may think your magazine does not need advertising, or that it would somehow make it seem less ‘serious’. Even if this is the case, there are many items carried by magazines that have an element of advertising, although they may not be regarded as pure advertising, or may not be charged for. Here are some items that could be considered as advertising:

• for sale and wanted columns
• job-seeking enquiries
• personal contact columns
• requests for information
• details of events
• book reviews
• readers’ offers
• product advertisements
• service advertisement

 

All of these provide benefits to people seeking information, advice, assistance, products or services.

How Advertising Can Be Carried

There are different ways in which you can handle advertising material. For example:

• You can print it in the magazine itself.
• You can publish it on a website.
• You can include it as printed inserts (‘loose’ sheets you include with the magazine).
• You can email it to readers who have indicated they wish to receive such material.
• You can put it on products that are associated with the magazine (for example publicity material, free gifts and so forth).

Generating An Income From Advertising

Advertisements are an excellent way of increasing your income; however, there are various factors to take into account when you take advertising. These are considered below.

Setting Advertising Rates

To set your advertising rates you should work out your costs, decide how much profit you need to make and fix the rates accordingly – although still in line with general ‘market’ rates for your kind of publication. Some of the factors that can affect your advertising rates are the following:

• Your circulation. The larger this is the higher rates you will be able to charge advertisers.
• Whether you print in black and white only, ‘spot’ (single additional) colours or full colour. These have different costs.
• How long you have been in existence. A new magazine may find it harder to attract advertisers and you may need to offer lower rates as an incentive to advertise.
• Whether or not you receive advertisements in a final form – as an email attachment, on a disk, as film or finished artwork. If advertisements come in as text only and you have to get them into usable form, this could involve a lot of design time and – unless you do it yourself – paying a graphic designer. So your advertising rates need to relate to ‘finished’ copy, with additional charges being levied if you have to provide design services to advertisers.

Charging For Advertising

Assuming you do not offer advertising as a free service to your readers, you will need to decide what to charge for space in your magazine. There are various options:

• commercial rates
• discounted rates
• ‘semi-free’ advertising
• free advertising
• ‘contra’ deals

 

Let’s take each of these in turn:

• Commercial rates. This means charging advertisers rates which: cover your costs and provide adequate income/profit for the time, effort and resources you devote to them. To do this you will need to work out what your costs are – both direct (for example, purchases) and indirect (your own time and effort) and then assess how much you wish to make in addition.are comparable with market rates for similar publications. To do this you will need to find out what others are charging. If you ask for a media pack (usually a copy of a magazine, its advertising rates and some information about the size and nature of its circulation) or a rate card (the magazine’s advertising rates) you will obtain this information – although you may find that some magazines do not wish to send this to their competitors. You can also look in BRAD (British Rates and Data – see Appendix 2) which gives advertising rates for publications that are listed in it.
• Discounted rates. It can be helpful to allow some space at reduced rates. You may do this as a service to people and organisations on low budgets, or you may do it as a deliberate tactic to increase your advertising revenue – either to increase its volume or to give the discounts as an incentive for future, or bulk, advertising space purchase.

 

Discounted rates can be helpful in circumstances such as the following:

• You want to offer an inducement to begin advertising.
• You want to offer an inducement to continue advertising.
• You want to attract advertising that might otherwise have been placed elsewhere.
• You want to fill space that might otherwise not generate an income or would simply be empty.
• You want to reward the loyalty of regular advertisers.
• You want to offer reduced rates (or even free advertisements) to people or organisations prepared to promote your magazine in return (often referred to as ‘contra’ deals – see the section after next).

 

If you do discount the cost of advertising, you can do it in various ways, for example:

• reducing the price of a single advertisement
• reducing the price of a series of advertisements if they are booked (and preferably paid for) at the same time
• reducing the price of one or more subsequent advertisements if the first one is booked at full price
• reducing the price of a repeat advertisement where there are no changes to the material supplied
• reducing the price of advertisements for a selected group of advertisers (for example, members of an association)
• allowing an extended period before invoicing, or extending the period allowed for payment, so the advertiser gains cash-flow benefits
• discounting the price of advertising if payment is received in advance or within a specified period.

 

Many advertisers will expect reduced-rate advertisements and if you have advertising placed through an advertising agency they will expect discounts so that they can make money through selling space to their clients at a higher price than they buy it from you.

• ‘Semi-free’ advertising. This can be another useful inducement to advertisers. Some ways of using this process are to: offer a free second advertisement – in either the same, or a subsequent issue, if the first one is paid for in fulloffer ‘advertorial’ – whereby a paid advertisement is accompanied by free editorial text on the features or benefits of the item advertisedoffer a free listing or small advertisement to people who subscribe to the magazine
• ‘Contra’ details. This is a common feature of magazine production and is an arrangement whereby you and another person or organisation enter into an agreement to mutually promote each other’s products or services, or reciprocate in other ways. To use contra arrangements, you need to have something of benefit that you can offer. Here are some things you may have that others could value: free (or reduced cost) advertising space – in the body of the magazine, as loose inserts or on your websitewebsite links – where you provide a link from your website to the other organisation’s site – the link may just be their website address or may be accompanied by information about their products or servicesmailings to your database (or provision of a single set of subscriber address labels) – as long as the people on your database have agreed to have additional mailings from third parties. (See also section on sale of mailing lists earlier in this chapter.)use of resources (for example, sharing administrative help, office space, design facilities and so forth)exhibiting (or distributing) material at each other’s eventsreaders’ offers – where a supplier gives you products or services to offer your readers and you benefit by having an inducement to readers to buy your magazine