Advertising, subscriptions and retail sales are the main sources of income for a magazine. To maintain long-term profitability, publishers must attract and retain advertisers that buy space regularly. To manage the sales process, publishers recruit full-time advertising sales reps or hire independent sales reps who specialize in magazine advertising.


Sales reps build an understanding of the types of products their magazine readers buy. The product profile for a special interest publication, such as a gardening or sports magazine, is relatively easy to define. For general interest publications, such as a weekly entertainment or news magazine, the profile is less precise. Reps also study competitive magazines to identify the types of companies that advertise in these outlets. They use the product categories to create lists of prospects to contact.


Reps must know who buys advertising space within a prospect company. In some cases, the advertising or marketing manager may be the primary contact. In companies with larger advertising budgets, space buying is typically handled by a media planner within an advertising agency or an independent media consultancy. Sales reps must deal with the person who has purchasing authority.

Media Kit

Agency media planners require detailed information on a magazine’s readership and editorial policy to help them evaluate its potential for advertising. Sales reps provide these agency planners with media kits that include demographic and lifestyle profiles of the readership, advertising rates, editorial samples and production requirements. The media kit provides circulation statistics and profiles of readers based on their age, sex, location, interests, income and occupation. Sales reps use those data to demonstrate the audience advertisers can reach by taking space in their magazine.


Sales reps make presentations to advertisers or their agencies to show how their magazine can deliver results. They provide a list of products and advertisers featured in the magazine and use case studies of successful campaigns to demonstrate how advertisers have improved brand awareness or increased sales or market share.


The basic cost for an advertisement is published on a rate card included in the media kit. Sales reps aim to sell the largest possible advertising spaces to their clients, but they can offer different types of discounts to encourage them to buy. They can offer series discounts to advertisers who purchase multiple advertisements to appear over a long period. They may also offer a lower rate to advertisers based on the volume or value of advertising they purchase.


Sales reps can offer incentives to advertisers by arranging to place advertisements in prominent positions within the magazine at no additional charge. They may offer to provide editorial content that is relevant to the advertiser or set up a competition in the magazine, offering readers the chance to win the advertiser’s product. Reps may also obtain the agreement of the publisher or advertising sales manager to offer special discounts to major advertisers as an incentive to try the magazine.