I decided to update my media kit for Dream.In.Code today. My old one was out dated, and not very well designed. I went the PDF route and designed the entire thing in Publisher. When I got to the page with my ad placements, I had to decide whether to include my prices or not. Now typically, I enjoy seeing prices when I view a MediaKit. But I also realize that every situation is different and what may work for 1 advertiser, may not for another. So, I left the prices out and decided to go with the “Contact me for a custom quote”.
I price my ad space based on what I’m currently getting from TribalFusion or AdSense. So depending on the month, a spot may be worth $2.00 CPM, or $5.00 CPM. It also depends on what the advertiser wants. If they are looking for a long term campaign, then I want to work with them from the very beginning. So what do you think? Should a Media Kit include prices?
You can view my 2007 Media Kit here.
by Chris Kenworthy @ Ackfoo.com
Nice work Chris – looks sharp. I have always included pricing, but am interested to see how it works out for you!
Why not put a price? When you sell a house you put a price, when you sell a car there is a price, when you buy something at a grocery store there is a price.
Without a price nobody knows if they can afford it or not.
But what about all the things that don’t have prices: most advertisements.
A Media Kit is your sales pitch. It’s your way to say “If you’re truly interested, contact me and we’ll talk”. If you post your prices, people will make an immediate judgement and you may never get the chance to really “sell” your ad space to them.
Well you just said it yourself. The media kit is the sales pitch so that is your sell.
The price just tells people if they can afford it or not.
I personally like to see a price, but I can see how not including it may give you a chance to talk to more advertisers personally.
@ Rex: As an advertiser, you should be able to judge generally whether you can afford an ad on a site or not based on the numbers presented anyways, so I don’t think that’s a huge deal.
I understand Chris’s desire to try to close the ad sale himself, rather than relying on the media kit to do it.
I’m working on a new Media Kit and Rate Card as we speak so I’ll share how I’m doing it.
I’m going to have a PDF Media Kit that sells my website, has stats, and shows ad placements. However it will not show prices.
On the same page as the media kit there will be a quick contact form for someone to put in their contact info and what they want to advertise. Once they fill it out and hit send they will automatically be emailed a thank you note from me and a link to our Rate Card which is a one page PDF document that has the ad placements for the site along with the prices.
I will then either email them or call them the next day to follow up.
As with any sales situation your win rate will go WAY up if you have some way of following up with a potential customer.
Hi,
I really like the design, just one thing I would add are headings on the pages. That’s what most people usually look for. And from a usablity point of view, I think they should be standard.
Nice work
I don’t think you can just judge by a site whether you can afford the advertising or not. Personally I have a budget that can range from 0-10k but if I don’t have a price I will never know what they want.
I’ll have to disagree with Rex on this – “when you sell a car there is a price”. I don’t know what part of the country Rex lives in but I know around here very few car lots put prices on cars, that is of course it’s a brand new car. Other then that it’s usually just a year listed.
Nicely done Chris!