HOW to Attract Advertisers in 3 Steps | Unlock Success for Your Business

How do you sell advertising? I got a question from a Facebook reader, Faith, who's trying to start up a new publication and is looking for advertisers. And her challenge here is if she doesn't get advertisers for her business, it's not gonna take off. Because even if she has great content, a great idea, if everything is coming out of her pocket, it's not gonna last. It's not gonna work because Her pocket is not unlimited, so she needs advertisers to pay for this thing to help it get off the ground. And she wanted my step-by-step advice on what to do. So Faith, great question. Congrats on wanting to start up this business. Here are a few things for you, really important step-by-step advice to help guide you along your way. The first thing you want to do to find an advertiser is you start by making a list. So you think about every single company that is already advertising to your target market. I always prefer to go with companies who are, who are already advertising because they have a budget. If you're trying to go to new companies who've never done any advertising before, it rarely works out because you have to convince them to start advertising when they've never done it before. It's possible, but it's so much harder compared to companies who are already spending a lot of money in your space. So start by making a list of every company who's advertising to your market. Now Faith is starting a publication for homeschooling parents. So who's her target audience in terms of advertisers? Anybody who's trying to sell to parents. And it's huge. There's so many companies who are trying to target parents, especially new parents, especially young parents who have, you know, their first kids coming out. So those are the companies to target. To find that list, look at any trade shows that deal with babies or young kids. Look at any publications that are already out there. Look at any websites that are out there and just make a list of everybody who's advertising in there. The next thing is, step number 2, is you wanna make a list of the people who you can contact at those businesses. Now this step is a little bit harder. So say for example, uh, Pampers is a company you wanna target. You need to find somebody at Pampers who you can talk to about your campaign. Now who you find really depends on what your market is gonna be. So for your own publication, are you looking to go just for your state, just for your city, are you trying to go national, trying to go international? The person you connect with at the company will really depend on what the scope of your market is going to be. So if you're just trying to do a local regional campaign, something in your state, then you need to find somebody local. If you're going for a national campaign, then you get bumped up to scale a little bit. My favorite way to find people has actually been through a website called Jigsaw.com. I'm not affiliated with them in any way other than being a customer, but it's a great way to find people who work at a specific company and have a specific job title. So you could go to the website, type in Pampers, or type in Johnson Johnson, type in marketing, or type in advertising, and it'll generate a list of people who work at that company. And if you want to get their email address, you want to get their phone number, then you have to pay $1 to do it. But it's a highly targeted list. And so you can go to the website and start finding the people who you need to connect with, and you can see what their title is. You don't want to shoot too high. If you're just trying to do something in your city, you don't want the national advertising manager. As you start to build your list, then you get a, a targeted group of people who you can actually connect with. And then the next step is to start reaching out to them. And if it's by email or by phone or by person, you need to start reaching out and don't hesitate if they start rejecting you or if they don't respond to you. And that's gonna happen, especially at the beginning. So the key elements to making them say yes is looking at your pitch. And if you're gonna break down your pitch, I'd say there are 3 key things that you need to remember. The first is to stand for something. What is it that makes your publication so much different, better, unique compared to everything else that's out there? Because if you're the same thing as everything else, there's no reason to go with you. Remember, these advertisers are getting pitched on an ongoing basis by publications, by all sorts of different outlets trying to get their money. So you need to be different, you need to be unique, you need to stand out, and you do that by standing for something. So what do you stand for? Are you trying to get more people to become homeschooling parents? Are you trying to make the lives of homeschooling parents easier? What is it? Like, why are you starting this thing? That's gotta come across in your message. If, if they believe in the same thing as you do, it's gonna be so much easier to convince them to give you their advertising dollars. So that's the first thing. The second thing is show some momentum. A lot of times the people who are pitching these advertisers have zero to no momentum. They don't have anything going yet. It's really hard to give dollars to a startup that's never proven themselves, right? Why am I gonna spend $10,000, $5,000, $1,000, whatever it is with you if you've never done anything before? So show some momentum wherever you are at in your progress. Show that you've done something. Show some examples of the stories you're gonna write. Show some examples of the feedback that's already coming back. Do something online, create a campaign, even if it's on Facebook, something to show that you have a readership base, that people need this thing. Obviously, if you've already published a few, it's easier to show that, but if you haven't done that yet, again, show as much momentum as you can instead of just saying, "Hey, I have an idea and I'm looking for an advertiser," because you're not gonna get through. You've gotta show that you're more than just an idea. And then 3, find a way to help get them started at really low cost, low investment, and then overdeliver like crazy. This one is so important. Starting off a new relationship with any company is always risky. It's a risk not just in terms of their money, but also in terms of their time, right? If they're spending time with you, they're not spending time with somebody else. And they don't want to make the wrong decision. They don't want to invest their money in the wrong company and spend their time on projects that aren't going to work out. So because of that risk, they're probably gonna say no. And so the way to get them to say yes is to reduce that risk. Make it super easy to get them involved, either free or really minimal commitment at the start, and then overdeliver like crazy. Show them some results. And as you do that, you're gonna be able to increase your prices and go off and get new advertisers as well. So as an example from my background, I was hired a number of times to write blog posts for companies. And the first blog post I wrote, they asked me for 250 words, 300 words, something like that. And instead of just doing that, instead of just doing the bare minimum, I wrote like 2,000 words, 1,500 words. I included a video. I promoted it to my audience. I got way more results than what they were expecting. They just wanted me to write an article, and instead I, I wrote a way longer article, added video content, promoted it to my audience, drove tons of traffic to their website, and over-delivered like crazy. And as a result, they hired me back again and again and again, and I increased my prices. That first blog post, they paid me $500 to do. Now to write a blog post is $2,500. It's the same content, it's the same process that I go through. But I'm offering way more value and I can prove it to them. And now when companies ask me, "How much is it?" and I say $2,500 and they say, "$2,500 to write one blog post?" I can show them what I've done. There's a track record, there's a history. So you need to build that up. And so if you go in right away asking for top dollar, they're probably gonna say no. So find ways to reduce that risk at the start so you can show that you're going to be able to deliver solid results for them. Hopefully that helps. If you want, send me your pitch, send me what you're sending out, and I'll do a review for you and let you know what I think of it and where you can improve, because this is so important. It's so important because a lot of entrepreneurs have these great ideas, have noble ambitions, and doing it not just for yourself, but doing it to better your community, right? If this is a resource that is really lacking in the homeschooling community, then this needs to get done. You need to find a way to make this happen. If you're doing this just to make money, then, then I'm not interested in helping you. But if there's a reason behind that, something powerful, something where you want to give back and have an impact on people, then people can rally around that, and it's so important that you get this thing done. And I don't want something as simple as finding advertisers to hold you back from achieving your dream just because it's not an area of expertise that you're really good at. With work, with effort, with passion, you can overcome that challenge and build a hugely successful company. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me want to do more for you. And hey, I want to hear what you have to think. Please leave a comment underneath, let me know what you think. If you have a question for your business, leave it below, I'll do a video response. Thank you guys, I'll see you soon.