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"The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing"
John Russell, President, Harley-Davidson
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ADMA Conference / Exhibition, 2004
This year, ADMA's Pan-Pacific Marketing Conference will held on May 26 - 28 and will focus on the 'BIG Ideas in Direct Marketing'. Read more |
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Can I Walk You Home Tonight?
Just the other night after a party, I accepted a friend’s gallant offer to walk me home. Although I just live around the block, to be accompanied at that time of the night seemed a sensible idea. There was no reason for me to think that his offer was not genuine. He seemed nice and well behaved all evening. Perhaps it was because the moon was full (or simply a few drinks had emboldened his spirit). His gallantry started its decline the closer we got to my home, to the point where he considered it a far better idea that I should at take a guided tour of his car with extra attention to the plush back seat.
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Hot Property
You are a member based organization, charity, professional association or even a commercial operation with a regular value added e-newsletter. Can you effectively include advertising in your newsletter, charge for it and yet not dilute your branding and your message?
Of course you can. You own one of the hottest pieces of property in the advertising world. Your newsletter is an advertisers dream. Think about it. You have a strong demographic profile of your readers. They trust you and expect your newsletter. If you have been doing your job well you probably enjoy and open rate of 40% and above. You can accurately measure this.
Now, advertisers that get their message carried in your publication know exactly who will be reading their message. The Advertiser can tailor the message to that specific audience for maximum impact.
Choose your advertiser carefully
Deciding who will advertise is the next challenge. If you have a sizeable and qualified database you won't have a shortage of choice, so select well. make sure they company is respected by your subscribers and you. By carrying their ad you may be seen as an endorser of their product or service. Its not like printing a newspaper.
Single or Multiple Adverts
In most cases I recommend that you carry only one advert per edition of your newsletter. You can rotate them from edition to edition or have them rotate automatically using ad serving services if you really have too many to handle. Keeping the ads limited to one increases the exclusive appeal - and the associated cost.
How to charge
This is the biggest challenge. There are several models but I will explain the ones I like best for their simplicity and flexibility.
- Fixed sponsorship. Approach your top selected prospective advertisers. Offer a fixed term sponsorship arrangement (one year is normal). Make sure you set a reasonable figure based on frequency and reach otherwise you may end up negotiating for months and all that time losing revenue
- Open Market. Set up a rate sheet for your ad space and offer it to your advertisers on a per ad basis. This gives you the flexibility to increase rates as demand increases but is a little more work to administer.
What is the downside - you knew there would be one
As I mentioned in the beginning you don’t want to dilute your message or your image. You will need to get top level clearance of course. Once established it is important that you set a standard for the type of advertisers and the style of the message - not only what it says, but the look and feel of it. Advertisers will want high impact and bold positioning. Don't cave into demands that will jeopardize your brand. Don't accept rich media content such as Flash animations. These will not display in many e-mail browsers. If it must be animated use what is called an animated gif.
Why allow ads?
Well I don't know one member based association, NFP or commercial entity that couldn't find ways to allocate extra funds. My personal favourite though has to be using the revenue to upgrade the content and management of the newsletter itself. Hire professional writers and researchers, use a professional service like PeopleLogic that makes your job easier (note the shameless plug) or create a campaign to increase your subscription base so you can up the advertising rates.
Still stuck for an advertiser? Call me. We work closely with advertisers and media owners (yes that's you - there's a mini Murdock in every newsletter). We can help marry the advertiser with the right publication and assist in the implementation and strategy to make everyone happy.
Reach me on 1300 737 277 and ask for Paul.
Story by : Paul Hodgson
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Gmail, Google's free e-mail service is impressive, but...
I'd bet my beloved Transformers toy, Bluestreak, that 99% of all you lovely people reading this have some kind of free web-based email account, whether it be Hotmail, Yahoo or Lycos, etc.
These accounts are perfect for keeping in touch with friends and family while on the move, overseas or just on a short weekend break, as you don't need any email client to send or receive your messages; as long as you have access to a web browser and the internet, you're all set.
While these types of free accounts are great, they are also slightly limiting in the fact that they offer very little storage space in which to hold those scanned images of your recent Christmas party or the latest uplifting Powerpoint presentation currently doing the rounds. Hotmail provides a mere 2mb in which to store your email life and Yahoo ups the ante slightly to 4mb, but as great as they are, it's often nowhere near enough.
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