Does it make sense to sell advertising space?
I actually have a degree in advertising, so it seems like I should be able to answer my own question, but I just can't make a decision. So let's see what you think...We market to many thousands of women each week. Does it make sense to contact relevant advertisers and let them run their ads on our site? Our demographic is women over 50, income, if I had to guess, I'd say middle to upper class. I think this is why I'm dragging my feet. In order to approach advertisers, I need some relevent data about my mailing list. I wonder if I should send a survey out to our subscribers to get the information I need. But exactly what is that information? I think I need to contact my old agency that I worked for in Maine and get some advice.
And then here's my biggest concern...if you put ads on your site, people click on them and leave your site to check out something else. I guess I could set it up to open a new browser window when it's clicked on, so that my site stays open on their screen. That's an acceptable solution.
Now that I have analytics running, I have site data to fall back on and I know I have the traffic to make it work. I think we would be an attractive advertising option for the right company. Then I guess my next question is how do you come up with a rate sheet? Is there a resource for this? I feel so out of the advertising loop. Do you let people advertise on every page, do you let them stay up on the entire site?
I'm really interested in what any of you have to say on this. I'm concerned that although it's a nice source of income, that I may be compromising my sales and ultimately, that's counterproductive.
