2020 Communicate Brochure

21 WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE AREN’T ENOUGH SALES? Unfortunately, if we can’t sell advertising, someone else has to pay. Usually ad sales are successful enough to cover the costs of production. However, ad sales depend on the excitement and support we receive from you and your board. Organizations that provide enough advertising leads, and are on hand for questions, are usually our most successful clients. For some of our brand- new clients, advertising sales may be sluggish at first. However, once we’ve published the first issue it becomes a matter of increasing the prestige of the publication, securing new ad leads, keeping our current advertisers happy, and together growing your publication. WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP YOUR PUBLICATION BE SUCCESSFUL? First, provide ad leads in the form of a list of associate and/or affiliate members or trade show vendors. Board members can help us by encouraging the companies they work for to advertise in your magazine. Be supportive. As an organization, you have insight into the climate of your local market that our sales staff does not. Let us know who should be advertising, since this revenue pays for your publication and its full-time production staff — us. HOW DO YOU DETERMINE WHAT TO CHARGE FOR ADS? The formula for this is simple: we total up the annual costs of the publication and divide by the number of ad pages available. Most other magazines have an ad-to-editorial content ratio of 75%. We believe that a ratio of 50% looks nicer, provides better value for the advertisers and produces a publication that has more relevance to it. The pricing is set each year with each publication. We try to manage costs efficiently enough so that we don’t have to set advertising prices at exorbitant levels.