A guy made a magazine - sells it for free - and makes a big profit

[funk]

Another question from me for the day -

I recently came across a guy in my university, who I've known for a while and he has set up a really basic magazine. Like 4-5 pages in the university.

The funny thing is - this magazine...he just gives out free - so there is no cost in it - And because it is free, all the students are picking it up

He is not rich or anything, he's a normal student of 22 years

Obviously I ask him how the fuck is he doing this taking into account printing costs and putting the magazine together and he wouldn't let me in.

What I do know is that, he has gone directly to people - like Beer companies - Nightclubs - Music Shops etc - things that university students would like and these companies target - and has got a lot of advertising space in it.

He only let out a little bit and he is basically getting all his money purely from these advertisers.

Do you think that is possible?

He has printed 100'00 copies of this magazine last month - it was his first one - I don't think he is going to print it again for a couple of months but I thought it was interesting. It's like a year annual type of thing.

But the best bit is - it's free and the way he is getting income from it is purely through these advertisers putting ads in his magazine and they know that this magazine is going to go around the university campus just because it is free and it's a uni mag.

How can he get so much money from the advertisers to be able to sell this mag for free and have a decent profit afterwards?

[nordicnomad]

Another question from me for the day -

I recently came across a guy in my university, who I've known for a while and he has set up a really basic magazine. Like 4-5 pages in the university.

The funny thing is - this magazine...he just gives out free - so there is no cost in it - And because it is free, all the students are picking it up

He is not rich or anything, he's a normal student of 22 years

Obviously I ask him how the fuck is he doing this taking into account printing costs and putting the magazine together and he wouldn't let me in.

What I do know is that, he has gone directly to people - like Beer companies - Nightclubs - Music Shops etc - things that university students would like and these companies target - and has got a lot of advertising space in it.

He only let out a little bit and he is basically getting all his money purely from these advertisers.

Do you think that is possible?

He has printed 100'00 copies of this magazine last month - it was his first one - I don't think he is going to print it again for a couple of months but I thought it was interesting. It's like a year annual type of thing.

But the best bit is - it's free and the way he is getting income from it is purely through these advertisers putting ads in his magazine and they know that this magazine is going to go around the university campus just because it is free and it's a uni mag.

How can he get so much money from the advertisers to be able to sell this mag for free and have a decent profit afterwards?

Most print media make their money from adverts, kind of like most movie theatres make all their money off of concessions.

What you do is call around to see how much print publications in your area are selling page space for, undercut their rates, and then go directly to the companies telling them what you expect your circulation rate to be and that they can directly target the people they're trying to hit with broad market adverts for a much lower cost.

The only other hurdle is getting content for the mag and covering printing costs. As far as content goes, all you need to do is talk to aspiring journalists and writers at your school and ask them if they will write for free to build their portfolio of work and if you give them a big recomendation for their first job.

And with print costs you can get a loan from a bank for those if you sell the advertising up front since you already technically have the money to pay them back. It's a lot of footwork, but can really pay off if you do everything right and can sell your ass off.

[Young Spark]

The thing is that, to me it sounds like the advertisers feel that if they pay to advertise in a free magazine (especially on a college campus) that they'll get more business. Think about it, if the magazine is free that means it can be picked up from anywhere and the advertisers ad's are sure to be seen. Compared to a VERY VERY VERY TINY RISK (if you want to assume it to be) that if the guy charges for the magazines, many people may not buy it and therefore won't see the advertiser's to support them (which to some advertisers will be a waste of money.)

That's my perspective, maybe I'm wrong but then again... who knows

[nordicnomad]

The thing is that, to me it sounds like the advertisers feel that if they pay to advertise in a free magazine (especially on a college campus) that they'll get more business. Think about it, if the magazine is free that means it can be picked up from anywhere and the advertisers ad's are sure to be seen. Compared to a VERY VERY VERY TINY RISK (if you want to assume it to be) that if the guy charges for the magazines, many people may not buy it and therefore won't see the advertiser's to support them (which to some advertisers will be a waste of money.)

That's my perspective, maybe I'm wrong but then again... who knows

Exactly. While the circulation rate of something like this isn't all that attractive the targeted nature of the publication makes up for that along with the fact that there are fewer advertisements to compete with the space that the companies are buying.

Most small businesses have a very small area that they need to target, if you're near a university then that's basically it. Something like this makes a lot of sense for them, even franchise owners for larger chains that buy large amounts of advertising together for the whole area as part of a co-op need to do something on their own to catch peoples eye.

[T.J.]

I would have to agree with the other two comments.

[funk]

One question - how would I go selling the advertising upfront? Don't you think maybe they might say can we see the print first..

[jasaunders]

Have a prototype of the publication.

A few years ago I worked on a project with my then partner for a swimsuit calendar on a college campus. The calendar had a distribution of 10,000 and was handed out free to students. We found advertisers very easily and required a 100% deposit upfront, which covered printing costs.

[funk]

Nice - you did this in real life? How did it go?

How did you find these advertisers and how did you sell the product? Man I would love to chat to you as what I want to do is something very similar man

[jasaunders]

Yep, done in real life.
We already had a relationship with a lot of businesses from our m,ain venture as a promotions and entertainment company. However, we just hit the pavement and walked around.
We had a demo of our calendar with space set out for ads, a sheet with some information on it and prices, and thats it. We hit up bars, restaurants, tanning salons, liquor stores, retail stores, etc...

[funk]

That's cool Saunders -

I personally think I have a bit of a unique approach to it however I need some advice or like a little guide.

How much space for advertising exactly did you determine for it -

So on one page you have your calender layout - you have the main picture of the girl and how did you work out spacing for ads?

So you had done the shoots with the girls first for example - made the first calender and then went around? I'm guessing you did local to the area and university and your selling point being it is going to be picked up by a lot of students as it is free?

What was the biggest amount you got from an advertiser?

[jasaunders]

I can give you some advice or go over more details out of the forum if you want, but basically what we did was do all the model shoots. We found girls from the area and took the photos, offering them money when it was published.
We then made a demo calendar at Kinkos, on one side of the page (top) was the picture of the girl, on the other side (bottom) was a calendar. Ad space was available in blank space in the calendar (ie. if the month starts on a Thursday, the first Sunday through Wednesday is blank. If I remember right, we also had room above where the calendar started. We also had ad space available on a certain day if anyone wanted or certain week. For example, our first advertising customer was a tanning salon and they chose to advertise in the month for spring break, when they get the most customers.
To avoid oversaturation of ads, we limited space to I think 3 ads per month in the calendar.
So basically, our only startup costs for this project were film for taking pictures, the $20 to make a calendar at Kinkos, and having the guts to approach random good-looking women and ask if they want to model in a swimsuit calendar. We had contracts and guarantees in place so that when it came time to printing, we had advertising money to pay for it and the models.

My company did a lot of really fun things for a couple years, but this was definately one great summer when we were working on this.

[NeeJam]

You answered this question yourself and didnt even realise.

Advertisers will pay a large amount of $$ if they are reaching a large range of people. So with them giving him this $$ he was able to get the magazine printed and profit afterwards due to the $$ he recieved in a large amount off them because remember 10k people are looking at this.

If your looking to set something up like this yourself the question is not whether people will read it, its which advertisers to target. You also need to make sure you dont cram it with too many ads so you keep your reader base so you could even do this monthly becuase remember college students love a freebie

You could also look at this in the perspective of many online companies/websites including YoungEntrepreneur, Digg, Myspace, Google who all make money via advertising. Which is why Adsung is coming about .

[funk]

How would you judge though as in what to charge these people for the advertisement spots?

[akula]

How would you judge though as in what to charge these people for the advertisement spots?

http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/for...31&postcount=5

[syia]

wOO.. great thread. really informative. I wonder, a mag with 4-5 pages seems to me like a pamphlet already but the important elements is what is your mag is all about? does it educational type or just like announcing what happened in the campus?