Help expand an independant London Magazine

[samlassman]

We are a relatively small but well known London based magazine called The Other Side, that runs both online and in print. We've been running for almost three years now and it has got to a stage where we want to start bringing in some money as opposed to purely doing this as a hobby.

Everyone who works on the mag is working for free - all of us are very creative but not particularly sales savvy.

What would be the best way to bring in advertising - is employing a commission only sales person worthwhile and where is the best place to do this?

Thanks

Sam

[ricardas]

Hi Sam,

I have never heard of you guys before but it looks like a very cool magazine :)
Who is your target audience and how many magazines do you give away monthly?

Fill in the Free Marketing Strategy request form on my site and will be glad to give you some guidance ;)

Kind Regards,

[kate1]

Hi

As its your own magazine, who would be best to sell it? Could anybody in house give it an initial shot - and see how you go? Advertising in print is getting very hard to sell, unless you are incredibly niche - plus the fact that you could be chasing invoices for months - people just dont pay up front for magazine advertising.

[samlassman]

As we are all very creative our ad sales are not amazing and we tend to put it on the back burner every time we think about it. We also understand that print advertising is very tough at the moment - we do quite well from online ads and video virals.

I'm going to give it a big push before our next issue and fingers crossed we can get this working.

thanks

Sam

[telemax]

Hi, you need to bite the bullet and pick up the phone. It isn't easy but it is possible to get ad sales. Don't be afraid of trying individual branches of Banks, building society's etc. In fact it may be worth cold calling in person on local businesses.

Jonathan

[theadindex]

Despite the climate (in this instance economic not weather!) businesses will still advertise if you can give them good volume access to a target audience, that fits their market, at a reasonable price.

If your magazine recipients are geographic based i.e. London (rather than any particular sex, age or interest groups) then you need to target advertisers who operate within that geographic area. Frequency of your distribution is also relevant, as if it contains content that keeps it on peoples coffee tables, for say a month, then advertisers are likely to be even more interested.

In the end you (or somebody) is going to have to get on the phone and sell the ad space, but if you have a compelling proposition then you should be able to pick up the phone with confidence. Rejection is part of telesales but don't take it personally.

[David White]

Hi Sam, we work with other small magazine publishers like yourself so might be able to help you out. You can list your advertising spaces with us for free and we only charge you a commission when we make you sales.

Feel free to PM me or submit the details of your ad space at: http://www.advertiserbay.com/pages/Submit_Listing.html. Thanks

We are a relatively small but well known London based magazine called The Other Side, that runs both online and in print. We've been running for almost three years now and it has got to a stage where we want to start bringing in some money as opposed to purely doing this as a hobby.

Everyone who works on the mag is working for free - all of us are very creative but not particularly sales savvy.

What would be the best way to bring in advertising - is employing a commission only sales person worthwhile and where is the best place to do this?

Thanks

Sam