B2B Advertising: 5 Advantages Association Marketing Offers

When it comes to B2B advertising, mass marketing may be bigger but not necessarily better.

There’s no arguing that mass market publications are bigger, with larger ad sales teams, budgets and territories. However, there are still advantages that trade marketing offers advertisers that mass market publications do not.

Competing for B2C and B2B ad sales with large mass market publications is no easy task. In many cases however, advertising in a trade/association publication or website is a more strategic, cost-effective solution for advertisers. Here are just a few reasons why B2B association or trade advertising benefits publishers:

• The audience is a smaller, more targeted community.
• The advertising is cost effective.
• The content/advertising can be more easily tailored to the audience.
• The ability to reach a more niche audience.
• Less competitive ad environment

1.     Less Is More… More Targeted Advertising That Is

When it comes to B2B advertising it’s a tough sell sometimes for associations.  Mass market publications have one serious advantage… very large reach.  That usually means more readers and larger circulations.

Certainly, it’s great for a lot of people to see your advertising. But how much good is it doing your business if the people who are seeing your advertising are not the people most likely to buy.

Advertising via a trade or association channel allows for you to drill deeper and dissect your audience more thoroughly. Business publications, for example, reach a large audience of people in various stages of business: business students, aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, retailers, startups, retired business people, etc. Perhaps, you want to reach project managers, engineers, or hedge fund managers specifically. Association advertising makes that a lot easier to do.

2.     Association Advertising Can Save Money

In this economy ad budgets are getting smaller, while client expectations are getting bigger.  More than ever it is important that every dollar spent counts. Because the circulation and readership is larger, mass market publications can demand more for their advertising.

Let’s take print ad sales for instance. The cost for one full-page ad in a national magazine can range from $3,000 to $25,000 not counting production costs to create the ad.  Association publications are less expensive and pricing is usually more negotiable.

Additionally, customer acquisition costs should decrease for your prospective clients. Instead of buying an expensive ad for a large audience where only a few fit your target, your potential advertisers can instead spend their money for advertising to a select audience they have researched and that are more inclined to buy your product. Additionally, with ad rates being cheaper, your prospective client can buy more ads.

3.     Tailored Advertising for Your Audience

With mass market advertising, audiences are so broad and their needs are so varied that marketers either have to develop less effective one-size-fits all ads to reach all of their readers, or develop multiple campaigns to reach several different audiences. This is less of a problem in association advertising because the audience and the community are typically the same with a shared interest. This alone can save your clients ad production costs which can be pretty substantial.

4.     More Niche, More Reach

There’s an association out there for just about any industry, profession or interest you can think of. Associations not only reach, but create a community around this shared interest. The reason this is great for advertisers is that smaller niche communities tend to have greater word of mouth and rely more on recommendations and endorsements that come from their community. Advertising with a niche audience not only shows that advertisers care about and has an interest in that community but that they are also willing to spend their money to reach out to them.

5.     A Less Competitive Ad Environment

Association advertisers will rarely have to compete with mega large brands for ad space or for the attention of ad sales reps. Associations are united by a shared interest to grow and increase revenue for their association and advertisers are helping them do that. It is to the benefit of the association to treat all of their advertisers, no matter how small, like they are the biggest advertisers. The customer/advertiser dynamic is different in smaller, association advertising.

So associations and B2B publishers, the next time an advertiser is considering whether to advertise with your publication over a big mass market, remind them that association advertising is more targeted and less expensive.  Also let them know that there is reach, new customers, and higher revenues in going niche.

 

AdBoom Advertising is an ad sales partner specializing in marketing exceptional associations like yours. Contact us and lets work together to build a strategy that boosts your non-dues revenue.