4 easy tips for selling more advertising for your association

Selling more advertising might seem like a big task when you have a small staff.

Here are four easy tips for making your association’s advertising opportunities more attractive.

Selling advertising can be a highly effective part of your association’s sponsorship program. It’s another way to drive non-dues revenue by giving companies in your industry exposure to a targeted audience (your members). It also has the benefit of giving your members information about relevant products and services.

But when you have a small staff, selling advertising can seem like a tall order.

Let’s turn that around with these four easy tips for selling more advertising for your association:

1. Build an advertising sales kit.

An advertising sales kit makes the case for why your association is the best place for businesses in your industry to spend their advertising budget. It’s also a one-stop place for potential advertisers to learn what they need to know about promoting their products or services to your members through advertisements.

If your association doesn’t already have an advertising sales kit, it’s time to create one. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it should include a few key items to generate the greatest results. If you aren’t sure where to start, we have a checklist to get you going.

2. Use data to “sell” your membership base and your association.

In your advertising sales kit, be sure to promote your membership as an ideal audience for advertisers. Highlight things like:

• Current overall number of individual members
• Membership growth rate
• Member demographic information, such as company size, job levels, job function, and region
• Notable information about your members’ interests and buying habits

TECH TIP: All-in-one association management software (AMS) like YourMembership AMS by Community Brands makes it easier to collect, view, manage, and use your data because all of the data is in one convenient place. YourMembership AMS also includes dashboard and reporting functionality, plus data analytics capabilities, to help you track and analyze your membership data.

Also, include some of your association’s top activities and trends that might be impactful for advertisers, such as:

• Monthly website traffic
• Key events and attendance for each event
• Publications and their distribution

And if you have positive advertising-specific data, such average number of impressions for banner ad advertisers, be sure to include that as well.

TECH TIP: Membership directory functionality in YourMembership AMS includes ad space capabilities, allowing you to easily place companies’ banner ads in multiple locations.

3. Make your data pop.

The information in your advertising sales kit might make a clear case for why a business in your industry should advertise with your association. But if the data is all words (and too many words), you might lose potential advertisers’ attention before they get to the good stuff.

Here are a few ways to make your information more impactful:

• Keep the text in your advertising sales kit as brief as possible while still telling a compelling story.
• Highlight images, examples, and advertiser testimonials to make the information in your advertising sales kit more eye-catching.
• Present data in charts and graphs to make it easier for potential advertisers to quickly see the value of advertising with your association.

4. Put your advertising sales kit to the test.

Ask someone on your staff, a volunteer, a board member, or even a long-time sponsor to review your advertising sales kit. Make sure it’s someone who isn’t familiar with your advertising opportunities so they can give it a fresh look. Ask them to check for errors and give you feedback on what you could do to make it more attractive to advertisers.

Learn more

With a few simple approaches, you can be well on your way to selling more advertising and driving more revenue for your association. Learn more tips and insights for creating an advertising sales kit that gets results: Read the guide, How to Build an Advertising Sales Kit to Drive More Revenue for Your Association.