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"Promo, Sales
Copy, and Web Design to
Enhance Your Bottom-line"
Vol.1, Issue 1.
"7 Innovative
Tactics to Increase
Your Site's Ad Sales Revenues"
By Kamau Austin
Publisher and Editor Einfonews
It is
both incredulous and understandable, that many successful web publishers
(in terms of building web traffic) have little or no regular advertising
revenue based on their site's traffic. Incredulous, because in other forms
of media, publishers are paid advertising on a cost per thousand basis
(CPM). Understandable, because most web publishers do not come out of
traditional publishing backgrounds and therefore, do not fully understand
how advertising is sold. While some web publishers make meager revenue
from the so called "pay for performance" advertising programs,
and endeavor to increase their traffic using banner exchanges, most make
no ad fees based on their site's traffic, impressions, or unique visitors.
This has resulted in high quality, but under financed, web publications
vulnerable to the whims of opportunistic marketers who are getting a free
ride in developing their brands and promoting their businesses.
I am
familiar with some web publishers who receive tens of thousands and even
millions of unique visitors a month, with no significant CPM advertising
revenue. If you are a successful publisher in terms of your site's traffic
(10 thousand unique visitors a month or more), you should be able to target
a niche market of businesses that would like to reach your site visitors,
and therefore, sell significant advertising. I know of many small print
publications with readerships of only 10,000 - 15,000 subscribers, who
do hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad sales revenue a year, and even
get some major corporate sponsors. While in contrast, a web publisher
with similar numbers in terms of site traffic, will lament how hard it
is for a web publication to get ad sales revenue based on CPM. With a
seven-year background as a media sales rep, I can attest to the fact,
that it is a challenge to sell advertising for any media. Selling advertising
takes a lot of time, canvassing, cold calling, focus, and closing skills.
This article is written from the vantage point of helping web publishers
become more competitive when selling their media's advertising inventory
over against other forms of traditional media.
The
benefits far out weigh the sacrifice in terms of the time and effort spent
in cultivating advertising revenue. A fairly successful web publisher
could generate 6 figures in ad sales revenue, if they would focus on small
business advertisers, as over looked sources of revenue. Lets explore
7 ways you can begin to explore if CPM based advertising can work for
your web site. First, lets quickly examine advertising on the web.
Many
pundits like Dr. Jacob Neilson www.useit.com,
question whether advertising on the web has a future at all. However,
according to Emarketer (based on research from auditing firm Pricewaterhouse
Coopers and commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB),
Internet advertising today is a 7.3 billion dollar industry, that is projected
to grow to 13.5 billion by 2005. Conversely speaking, the Internet advertising
industry is growing faster than any other form of traditional media at
about 13% this year. According to Emarketer, sources like The Myers Group,
Zenith Optimedia, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers - all posit figures, that
Internet advertising is at the head of the advertising growth curve.
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There
are many reasons companies advertise. For the purposes of this article
we will only mention a few, and for our purposes only focus on one. Major
Corporations will basically only want to pay the mega-sites (i.e. Yahoo,
AOL, Ebay, MSN, etc.,) for CPM based advertising. They are looking to
reach mass markets of hundreds of millions of web surfers. Therefore,
in most cases, major corporations should not be the focus of your advertising
sales efforts, unless you own a mega-site (or at least one that receives
a million unique visitors a month). Major corporations, may be receptive
to a smaller site if it can sponsor a major event or section of the site
that will increase its image, goodwill, or brand. Usually, your site will
have to have partnerships with major publications, as media sponsors,
before they give you any serious consideration. It takes at least 6 months
to a year to cultivate and close any corporate ad sales.
Given
the challenging dynamics of selling to major corporations that we alluded
to earlier, small businesses should be the main focus of the average web
publisher. Major corporations look to use advertising to enhance their
image, goodwill, and brand - knowing that it will translate into the more
elusive customer loyalty and advocacy in the long run. While in contrast,
most small businesses, which account for 75% of the US economy, advertise
to receive more immediate impact, usually referred to as direct response
advertising. This is the most salient issue to understand when selling
to small businesses. Selling to small businesses is a different art and
science, than selling to large corporations in this regard. The following
7 approaches are good innovative starting points in beginning to analyze
if your site can generate advertising revenue based on your site visitors.
1. Create
and design a web site or e-newsletter that is conducive to and facilitates
your advertisers. Try not to think like many publishers (i.e., I have
the world's greatest content therefore, advertisers should pay for the
privilege to be associated with my publication). For instance when you
sell small business listings, do not warehouse the ads in a database only
to be seen with a search request. Instead: use the database with an ad
rotator script to rotate the ads, run of page (throughout the site), so
that site visitors will actually see the ads. The reason most small businesses
only want free listings, is because presently text ads have little perceived
value. This is because advertising does not work when businesses are only
given ads accessible with a search application.
According
to May 2002 issue of New Architect magazine (formerly Web Techniques)
the search engine Google (using a new ad format know as AdWords), MetaFilter
(www.metafilter.com), and other blog sites are doing very well selling
text advertising by either making ads keyword specific or rotating the
ads. They use different methods of utilizing text ads with various scripts
like TextAds (available through http://sourceforge.net/projects/textads/)
and a similar script from Affordable Webspace Design: http://awsd.com/scripts/webadverts/index.shtml.
2. Sell
for the long term. Advertising's impact is higher with frequency. Many
small business persons will want to buy advertising on an - one time hit
or miss basis. Discourage this, by setting 4 time minimums, and try to
create long term advertising commitments that are low cost investments,
to give the ads time to work. These approaches increase the chance that
they (the advertiser) will get a response and continue to advertise with
your e-publication. An example of this approach would be to create a text
based advertising campaign were an advertiser would pay only $200 dollars
to be listed, run of page, on your web site for a year. You would create
a database and rotate the ads throughout the site. Maybe you could do
profiles on the businesses throughout the year on a rotating basis. Lets
say you get two sales a day after prospecting 30 prospects daily. That
would translate into $120,000 dollars in ad sales revenue a year (2 x
$200 = $400 x 300 days a year = $120,000) - not bad for a small site!
In order to achieve this level of advertising sales success the site owner
would have to prospect at least 30 cold calls a day or contract someone
to handle this type of sales effort.
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3.
Use the informational ad approach. How many times have you laughed at
a commercial on television? Are there some commercials that you love
to see on television, or love to hear on radio? Television is an Entertainment
medium therefore; the ads have an entertainment flavor to them. The
Internet is more of an informational media therefore, information oriented
advertising seems to work the best. This is probably the reason text
ads in ezines and e-newsletters are some of the most effective types
of on-line advertising. Encourage your advertisers to use text ads,
and when appropriate, write endorsements with links for outstanding
products or services, that you know that you can stand behind. Just
watch out for the time honored separation between advertising and editorial
in publications. Only endorse products and services if you know personally,
that the product or service is outstanding. Dr. Ralph Wilson (AKA Dr.
E Biz) does a good job of this in his book reviews on his site at www.drebiz.com.
4.
Have a good ratio between advertising and editorial. Most traditional
publications have a ratio between advertising and editorial. If you
have too much advertising you will begin to lose your readership. This
is especially important in ezines and e-newsletters. When you have too
much advertising, you should consider raising your rates or expanding
your publication to keep a good ratio between the two. In an e-newsletter
I would suggest a 25%/75% ad and editorial ratio respectively. In an
ezine try a maximum 40%/60% ad and editorial ratio respectively.
5.
If you are a small publisher, with no real chance of generating CPM,
try to create or join a cooperative advertising network, where you get
a percentage of aggregate CPM of a group of web sites, until you build
up your traffic to go solo. Another good tactic is to partner with another
traditional media, like a local newspaper or niche magazine in a similar
field as your web site. Many of these publishers also neglect small
business advertisers. Create a small business or classified section
of their publications and calculate a good return for both your web
site and their print publications in your cooperative ad rates. Then
sell combo ads for both media (which is a win - win situation or synergy
for everyone involved) and take your cut. The cross selling will give
both your web site and the print publication extended reach, readership
and circulation.
6.
Sell advertising to niche or vertical marketers who will find customers
in your site's particular area of interest.
7.
Out source your sales efforts to experts who specialize in selling media
advertising. If you do not feel capable of selling your media's advertising,
why not out source it to a publisher's representative. These are people
who sell advertising on an independent contractor basis. Try to get
someone with contacts and abilities to sell your advertising. NAPR (National
Association of Publisher's Representatives) www.naprassoc.org)
is a good place to find such professionals. Use common sense, if a publisher's
rep specializes in getting corporate accounts, but you have a small
publication, do not hire that rep, because their expertise is not in
selling to small businesses. Get a small business ad sales rep, or classified
ad sales company, to sell your advertising inventory.
Lastly,
you could learn to sell the ads yourself by reading books or acquiring
the services of an ad sales coach to teach you how at: www.adpronline.com.
Kamau
Austin, is a web designer that specializes in E-business development
with Internet marketing, advertising and promotion. He is the principal
of AdPro Media Sales (www.adpronline.com)
and the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Einfonews.
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