Take My Money - Please!

I am sitting in the office today listening to a colleague grow increasingly frustrated trying to spend several thousand dollars of a clients’ budget. It reminds me of my hard-core E-Comm days, trying to spend marketing budget during the holiday season, and frequently being completely thwarted.

Normally, you would assume that this part of the job is one of the most fun - after all, who doesn’t like to spend someone else’s money? But the sad fact is that sometimes, websites throw up almost insurmountable roadblocks to generating income, frequently simply out of carelessness.

Out of sympathy for my colleague, I thought this might be a good time to cover a few ridiculously simple tips on how you can make it easier for your website to generate income.

1. (And I cannot stress this enough) - Display Contact Information - especially a phone number! Companies that are looking to make a media buy are frequently working on a tight schedule. They shouldn’t have to search at LinkedIn, or run a whois on your domain, to find out who they can contact at your organization. Don’t expect people who want to give you buckets of money to fill out a form and wait a week for an answer, that is - if the form even works at all. The advertiser may want to call and make a deal, today… now… an hour ago. This is business, and it can move quickly.
2. Define Your Offerings - Create a page for advertisers that lists what you are willing to offer. Do you offer text ads? Banner ads? Interactive flash ads? Offer newsletter sponsorships, or branded e-blasts? Do you have a podcast, and are you willing to drop in a sound ad? Would you consider an ad in your RSS feed? Clearly lay out to advertisers what opportunities you offer - help them research and judge their needs before they make the call to you.
3. Consider Showing Some Traffic Stats - You don’t have to give away the farm… but let potential advertisers know whether you have 1,000 unique visitors per month, or 1,000,000. This simple information can get your site shortlisted in the media plan.
4. Demographic Information - Many traditional marketers prefer to have demographic information such as age, gender, location, etc. before making a media buy. If you don’t have this information, consider running a survey to collect what you can - it can make life much easier for the media agency to “sell” your website to the client if they can go armed with this information.
5. Consider showing past advertisers - If this is within your comfort zone, consider showing advertisers who have previously worked with you. This history can also help the agency demonstrate the worth of your website