Trying to sell an idea to companies/business's -, My own student newspaper!

**krupt** · 04-29-2008 11:09 AM

I've been having a mind blank recently and I've posted on here recently in the hardware section and because are so many different people I thought I'd give a shot here to see what people think!

Ok so basically I go to university and I am starting a little student magazine in my university....that in a way will compete with the university student newspaper that is already there.

No one reads the student newspaper and I've come up with something I think could be fun and definetely alot more people interested.

My university publishes 3000 copies of their newspaper every month. They get advertising in it also from companies.

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My magazine will be just like a newspaper too - A4 size, same as the university one and I plan to print 6000 copies a month. I have a kind of mockup already done.

I want to see if I can fund sponsorship or advertising for it to cover my printing costs. I have various content in it. Like interviews with girls, articles on student life, articles from "popular" students etc

I plan to print 3000 more copies then them and I plan to go to some of the pubs, shops, places that students go near to my university and go to them and say look - this is a sample of my own student magazine, put an add in it and students will see this and come to you and you give me £££ for putting it there.

So my question is - how do I sell it effectively...how do I make them feel, yes this will be good advertising - they will get the students they want etc etc

Any tips to marketing/selling ideas/selling adspace?

I don't have any proven track record so it's harder I guess as it's the first year/time I'm doing this but I know mine will be 60x more interesting then the uni's version

**sonnyrizo** · 05-01-2008 10:15 PM

Well, the only advertisers that will be interested are those who are seeking a college-age customers. Another forum member -- I think the name is Joshua Saunders -- explained how he created some short lasting publication that was funded through advertising. He explained how he approached various advertisers and was able to convince them to place an ad in his publication (much of the time, he was rejected).

See who may be interested in placing an ad in your newspaper and target those advertisers. They'll want to know certain things like circulation numbers and how effective your publication will be as part of their marketing.

**Gaulkin** · 05-01-2008 10:20 PM

People don't read 3000 of the universities papers, i doubt there going to read 6000 of your's right off the bat. Id advise doing small tests before going full swing with this.

**PhilFreecash** · 05-01-2008 10:34 PM

In order to convince someone to pay for an add in your magazine, its going to need readers. So you will need to give out ad space for fairly cheap, you probably wont be covering all your costs for a little. I would suggest a classifieds section as well where other students can post things for sale or businesses looking for workers.