Selling Advertising For Your Fundraising Cookbook

Fundraising cookbooks can be a fun and challenging way for your organization to get the support of local businesses. Here are a few tips on how to get advertising for your cookbook.

Preparation:

The first thing you will have to decide is what type of advertising you want in your fundraising cookbook. For instance, do you want a local business to go so far as to co-sponsor the book? Or do you want to make some calls to businesses in the area or that you have worked with before and sell them on the idea of advertising in your cookbook? Before you make those calls, you will need to know what it is that you are selling them (in terms of space and placement) so that you can avoid trouble down the road. If you have put together this kind of cookbook before, and you have example pages to show or email them, then do so. If not, find an example of what you are aiming for elsewhere.

Most books of this type simply place a few pages at the end of the book that are filled with small ads that most businesses already have ready to send you. This is an easy enough way to go, but if you want to get creative you can sell space on the section dividers or have businesses sponsor sections of the cookbook. This gives your sponsors higher-profile placement and helps their ad stick out, and gives you a better item to sell.

What Businesses To Contact:

If your organization has businesses that you have worked with before, or that have generally been friendly, they should be contacted. Also, at your next meeting, stand up and announce that you are looking for advertisers for the cookbook. There may be a fair number of business owners among your ranks that would like to advertise in the book, or that are acquainted with business that would. This should always be your first line of attack.

If you deem the number of advertisers you get in these manners to be adequate, then you can turn right to the design aspect. If you still need advertisers, You need to get a team together to start beating the street. In-person sales will be much more effective than trying to work over the phone, so have a meeting with your committee members, decide on some target businesses and divide and conquer. Your selling points should be your organization and the good work that it does, as well as the number of cookbooks you are publishing, and the number of people that the cookbook will reach.

Design:

As stated above, many businesses have camera-ready ads that they can simply email you, such as you might find in the yellow pages or in the back of the program for a high school football game. Some businesses might need a little help in that regard, however, so you might want to be ready to offer to design the ad yourself for a slightly higher price.

The designs in general should be fairly simple and not distract from the overall look of the cookbook. Work with your designer or theirs to find something that works for everybody.