How do you find flat rate advertisers?

I'm not good at selling...

[affgirl]

Hi, our site, which partly is a non-profit is getting some really great traffic and growth and we want to find paid sponsors and advertisers for it. I don't think affiliate ads really pay all that well unless you have a huge amount of traffic and really push the stuff. Really what we want to go for is larger companies who already buy expensive ads in magazines etc. for this target who would be willing to spend a lot less for some additional branding ads on our site in that target market niche.

I can find some advertisers to contact that are advertising in these magazines and other sites in this niche, but I have the problem that I have NO idea what to say to them or how to present it. Let alone what to ask for in terms of rates etc. and what to offer in return in terms of ad space and time etc.

If anyone has any experience in having sought companies out and getting them to pay you good money to advertise on your site on a weekly or monthly rate, please share any advice you can on this process and how to approach them.

Is it best to call, or did you just write them? I wish we had sales people on staff, but we can't afford that until we get some income from advertisers.... so... I'm just a designer and photographer, I'm not good at selling...

Would you create an ad page and disclose your rates on it upfront? What kind of things should you say about your company and site and opportunity on it? Are there any good resources for creating this type of business to business advertising ad copy or sales letters? Thanks.

[hunderdown]

Have you considered Google AdSense? Extremely easy to use. No need to set ad rates, deal with the advertisers, etc. You can set up the ad blocks to blend with your site, so it's unobtrusive. The ads are text only, so no ugly animated banners (there's an option to allow image ads, but you can leave it turned off). And the ads will match up with your content. AND you can block advertisers you don't approve of....

IMO, AdSense is a much better idea for a nonprofit, especially considering your limited staff resources, than advertising of the type you describe.

[affgirl]

I know about Google Adsense, but our content is not really the type that would make high CPC from Google, and we want to make more then a few hundred a month or a couple cents a click. It's really better suited for extremely targeted advertisers and branding and more like a magazine.

Some of our spots are 1000x400, they give a lot of exposure. Also, Google wouldn't help in getting commercial ad spots inside our videos, so. We're also pretty exclusive in who or what companies we will accept, they have to fit our audience and content and not detract from our message or mission....

[rogerd]

If you want to keep it simple, try a more passive selling approach - get your ad rotation software in place, and start with a mix of targeted affiliate ads and "advertise here" or "sponsor wanted" type ads that send people to a page with general info about advertising and how to contact you for details. You can disclose as much or as little as you like on that page.

[affgirl]

Thanks. We have made an advertising / sponsor opportunity page with a form to fill out to apply. We also have our ad software in place with all the spots active on our site. Currently they are just advertising ourselves, our different sections and features etc. I did mention to my partner that we should fill some of them with affiliate ads for now until we get flat rate advertisers to fill the spots. Not just to make a little money off that but so that it appears as though we already have advertisers and are not desperate. I thought maybe if other companies already see ads up it would be better. Of course the only problem is in the limited niche for such affiliate ads and companies, I would want to approach those same companies as well for sponsor advertising.

We will add some ads for the sponsorship that direct people to the sponsor page, as well as emailing and calling companies. Only thing is I don't know about disclosing or not disclosing the rates upfront on that page. We have for now, and thought that would be best. My only hesitation is in wondering if companies or organizations are bothered by other people openly knowing how much they are paying for their spots. Since it would be publicly listed the rates. I have no idea...

I hope it works and we get some this way, or else we might have to resort to using an ad network like Burst or Adbrite, and that would be less then ideal...