Ezine Ad Sales Shouldn't Cannibalize Your Mag Ad Sales
I just got a note from a magazine publisher who wants to sell ads in the magazine’s sister-email newsletter. His concern, “I’d like to be able to reasonably predict what impact soliciting sponsorship of our newsletters will have upon advertisers in the printed magazines. The fear is that it would cut into the success of our magazine advertising.”
Here’s what I told him: “My suggestion is that you pitch the newsletter sponsorships as an entirely different product that fills an entirely different need for the advertiser.
If their strategy is becoming a best-known name brand and being the company/brand that people think of when they think of that category, then print ads work very well.
If their strategy is to get out time sensitive news (perhaps a hot offer or product launch) or to make a soft direct response offer designed to grow their own in-house prospect list, then your newsletter is the best place to sponsor.
In other words, if your newsletter sponsor has to ‘steal’ funds from another budget to pay for ezine ads, perhaps those funds should come from PR and/or direct mail, not space advertising.”
Agree, disagree? If you’ve got some real-life experiences to back this one up, let me know.
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