Speaker 1: Hi, welcome to Open for Business. My name is Lou Reyes. I'm your host. In today's episode, I want to talk about five key factors to selling ad space and setting prices on your blog or your website. But before I do that, I want to remind you that if you haven't already subscribed to our YouTube channel, please go ahead and do that. All you've got to do is hit that little subscribe button underneath the screen and next to that subscribe button is a little bell. If you click on that little bell, you will get our latest updates and they'll be delivered right to your inbox. If I was sitting at a coffee shop and we were talking back and forth and you said to me, hey Lou, you know what are the key factors when it comes to selling ad space and or setting prices for a blog or for a website? I would tell you that number one is going to be your content. Number one is going to be your content. When I go with content, I'm also going to add into that, I'm going to add your demographics because content equals, to me, it equals demographics. I think to probably everybody else out there, you're thinking the same thing. But you know what? An advertiser is interested in the demos. They're interested in the income levels, male, female, do they own a home, do they not own a home, education levels. But an advertiser is going to advertise with you. A factor that you've got to be aware of is your demographic and who your target audience is so that when you're talking to the advertiser that there's a real good match. You don't want to try to sell somebody on something that's not a good match. But an advertiser will naturally gravitate. They're sort of drawn to a site that has people on it, viewers on it, that's getting the views from people who are most likely to buy their product. I'm going to give you an example here. If you have a blog or you have a website and on those sites you're writing articles or putting videos on there about automobiles, about high-end cars, well then go to a Porsche dealership and let the Porsche dealership know that this is what you're doing on your blog, on your website. Let them know that your sites are attracting people who are interested in high-end cars, they're interested in exotic cars. These are people, if you have the demographic information, these are people who have X education level, Y income, they're male, female, whatever the demo is. But the demographic, which again equals content, that's really very, very important. Okay, now let me give you another important key factor and it's one that seems to be misunderstood, at least in my opinion, and that's views and as in number of views. You know, a lot of people are under the misconception that you've got to have hundreds of thousands of views or millions of views or you can't price your ads at a point to where you're making a lot of money. They're under the impression that if you don't have hundreds of thousands of views or millions of views that an advertiser is not going to want to do business with you. But let me tell you, that is not entirely true and I would say that's not true, period. Because if you have the right audience, if you have the right audience and if that audience is an audience that's hard for an advertiser to contact, to engage with, that advertiser is going to be likely to work with you, likely to buy ad space on your blog or on your website. And I'll give you a real good example of this. You know, let's say for example a broker, a broker, a stock brokerage firm, they want only high net worth individuals. Well, if your blog or your website is one that gets high net worth viewership on a regular basis, and it could be a thousand, it could be five thousand, it could maybe even be a few hundred, but if you're getting views from somebody that, from a viewer who is hard to capture, a viewer who is not as likely to be, who's not easily reached, then an advertiser would be, in my opinion anyway, would be more likely to work with you. Now I'm not saying that you don't or shouldn't strive to get, you know, thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers. I mean, everybody wants it. There's a handful of bloggers out there, bloggers out there who are getting those kinds of numbers. But let me say this to you, and I want to emphasize this to you, you don't need millions of views to get advertisers. You just need the right views. Here is another key factor, and that key factor is ad size. You know, advertisers know that the larger the ad is, the more likely that the ad is going to be seen. And really, that's true anywhere. I mean, whether you're selling in, you know, the old media, in newsprint, or whether you're selling on the side of a bus, or you're selling on a blog, or you're selling on a website. Advertisers know that the larger the ad, the more likely it's going to be seen. So therefore, you are going to price that ad, that ad properly. The larger the ad, the more you're going to charge for that. Because that ad size, that ad is taking up space, the larger the ad is. So advertisers know it, but a factor that's very important is ad size. Like I said in the beginning of this video here, if you and I were sitting across from each other having a cup of coffee, and you were asking me the important factors, without a doubt, I would get to frequency. Because frequency is important, not just for you in terms of the revenue that you can generate from an advertiser advertising with you on a regular basis, but it's also important for the advertiser. And I do think a lot of people lose sight of that. A person who's selling advertising, they're interested in getting in that money. You know, that's what their thought is. That's what their first thought is. But my first thought isn't the money. Yes, of course, definitely we want the revenue. But what I want to do is I want to make sure that that advertiser is successful. I want to go above and beyond for that advertiser. I know that the longer, the more frequent that they advertise on my blog or on our website, I know the more likely they are to get a response. I know that the content on the site, some content may attract more views than other content. That's true with everything, isn't it? I mean, we know that's true with video. Certainly it is true with that. But the longer that advertiser is on there, the more opportunity that they have to get a good response. And what I always recommend is if you're selling or when you're selling advertising, sell it in 30-day blocks. So if I'm selling someone, I'm selling them an advertiser on a 30-day block, a 98-day block, a 180-day block, or even a year-long block of advertising, I want them to do it frequently. But I don't want to sell and I won't sell advertising for a day or a week. I won't sell any advertising for under 30 days. It's not going to help the advertiser and it's definitely not going to help you. So frequency is very, very important when it comes to selling an advertiser and when it comes to benefiting an advertiser. Okay, the last of the five factors that I want you to consider that I want you to think about is called placement. And I know that you've all heard, or I imagine you've all heard, the real estate slogan or phrase that says location, location, location. And you know what? It's true in real estate and it's definitely true when it comes to advertising or selling ad space on a blog or setting or determining what the price should be. But it's all about location. It's all about placement. On a blog or a website, the best placement to me, the placement that I would prefer to have, would always be at the top of the page. It would always be when the viewer opens up the page, they're going to see my ad, they're going to see my name, they're going to see my company. So to me, yeah, location, location, location is extremely important. And I would reserve that sweet carrot. I would reserve placement for only the best advertisers. Because if you reserve it for the best advertisers, number one, they're more likely to be able to afford to spend the money that would enable them to have that sweet spot. But it's not just about the money. It's not just about the revenue. With that, with having a major company, with having a great company on your website, validate your website, it shows that you have value. It shows the viewer, or future advertisers anyway, it shows them that, hey, this is a valuable website. If this company, if this major corporation, if this large advertiser is on this site, if it's on this blog, then these guys must know what they're talking about, and they've got a lot of value. So to me, placement's key. But I would only give placement to someone who, and I hate to say deserves it, but I would definitely give it to somebody, to an advertiser, sell it to an advertiser, who is going to benefit you, not just in revenue, but it's also going to benefit you when it comes to, and again, when it comes to the image, when it comes to validating your site and showing your credibility and value. But let me close with this by saying something to you. Yes, I've given you the five factors, what I consider the five factors of advertising. And these are factors that I've learned years ago. You know, I've ran a couple of publishing companies. I mentioned that, I think, a few times. Not today, but I've mentioned it in some other videos. I've ran some publishing companies. I've sold ad space at a sports venue. I've sold ad space for a radio program that I had way back in my early days of my career. But I've sold a lot of ad space. The factors I've given you, they're time-proven, time-tested. They work for you. But what's important is that you've always got to over-deliver. You've got to do that with your advertiser. You've got to demonstrate that you care. I'd say that's an important factor. You demonstrate you care. Don't take their money. Don't allow them to advertise on your site if it's not going to benefit them, because in the long run, it's only going to hurt you. And what you want to do, you always want to do, is you want to give them, make sure that they get amazing results on your site. Because if you give them those three things, if you always over-deliver, if you always demonstrate you care, and if you always give them amazing results, you're going to win in the long run. You'll never lose. So I just want to emphasize the five factors are important, they're time-tested, they're proven. You know, when it comes to using these factors to sell advertising in your blog or your site, what they're going to do for you, is they're going to give you the confidence if you follow them. They're going to give you the confidence so that when you call an advertiser, you're going to know that you're great, you're a great fit, you're right for them, and that you're going to be able to deliver the results that they want. So that's all I have for you for today, and I hope you enjoyed this episode on the Over 50 TV on YouTube, and I look forward to talking to you and meeting you again soon. Have a great day everybody.

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