Expert: Peter Gabany - 8/22/2010

Question
Mr. Gabany:

An associate and I have decided to publish a new local newspaper in our city and we are attempting to finance our first issue through the funds we acquire from our advertisers.  The problem is that I do not have very much experience in sales and am not sure how to go about selling advertising space in any publication.

We decided that we want the majority of our advertising to come from local businesses (since it is a locally-oriented publication), so we had the idea to create a "mock issue" that we would make several hard copies of to show to potential advertisers to give them an idea of how much better the quality of our publication is from that of our competitors with whom they are already advertising with.

Basically, we just need some good, old "Advertising 101" advice about how to approach our potential advertisers, how we can best sell them on paying for space in a magazine that hasn't yet been published and how best to collect those funds in advance so that we can use them to finance our magazine.

We're starting from scratch, so any other advice you think may be beneficial is certainly welcome.  Thank you for your time, sir.

Answer
I advise that you go online and order a number of media kits from favourite magazines. The kits are all available online and you will be in the know in moments. Look for small publications for rates and large successful publications for style of media kit. Large is not always successful as in the case of Gourmet Magazine.

A friend just started a new publication - BRIX - and she has done a delightful job, distributing through a National Newspaper and via subscription. Its focus is on Wine and Travel. Truly inspired. http://brixmag.com/

Use of the mock issue is a great idea. Cover, spread, index, any feature sections and include good looking mock ads.

I hope that this helps. Put us on the comp list, love to see the overall design.

Pete