Getting More for Your Ad Space

by Connie Parsons, Marketing Director

Does your association or group have a publication for which it sells ad space every year? It's possible that you are not receiving as much for that ad space as it is actually worth to the consumer. You can find out how much your ad space is worth by setting up an online auction for the space and letting your consumer tell you what it's worth!

The Health Care Association of New Jersey did just that to sell the back page ad space for their 2004/2005 Journal Directory and Buyers Guide. 

So, how does it work?

An auction page was created for the association's website. (Since the auction is over, you can view the page for design purposes only.) 

On the auction page, visitors can do two things:

• view the current bids
• place their own bid

HCANJ sent out an e-mail to notify their contacts of the new system, and told them the time during which the auction would run. Companies who wished to purchase the space then placed a bid and monitored the page until the final day of the auction to see if they were being outbid.

The program proves both effective and easy. Pattie Oliver from the Health Care Association of New Jersey managed their program and says, "The back page auction took very little hands-on management and within three weeks we had doubled the revenue from the prime ad space on the back page of our directory!"

If you would like more information about how to create an auction to sell your premier ad space, or any other type of high-visibility sponsorship, please contact Caresource at service@caresource.com.