Media Kits Made Simple: Key Tips and Components for Online Publishers

What are media kits?

As online publishers venture into digital advertising sales, it’s useful to consider creating a media kit to help attract potential advertisers or sponsors. Media kits are essential to provide targeted advertising partners with the information they need to make informed decisions about working with a publication.  

What are the benefits of a media kit? 

You might follow up on an initial sales call by sending a media kit over to the advertising partner for review. Potential advertisers or sponsors may want to review a summary of your publication and available opportunities before they’re ready to hop on a call. In either case, having a media kit ready will be important to a sales strategy. In addition, a media kit provides your publication with several key benefits, such as: 

1. Media kits help build trust

They are a great way to introduce a prospect to your publication. It’s also a tool that can help build trust with your advertising partners because it acts as an asset that transparently shares relevant information while also remaining consistent across your sales communications. This will give advertisers peace of mind that they’re being treated equally. 

2. Media kits add a professional touch to your publication

The use of a well-prepared media kit template communicates to your potential advertisers that you’re a serious organization. A media kit that features your branding will play a key role in communicating a cohesive and strategic vision to your partners.

3. Media kits can help you make quicker closes

They give key decision-makers access to all of the information needed to make a decision about working with your publication. This shortens the amount of time you need to spend providing information to prospects, and in turn, helps them reach their decision to make a purchase sooner.

Key components of an effective media kit

There are several key components of a media kit that potential advertisers will expect. But what is the cost of designing a media kit? Truthfully, you don’t need a big budget to design an effective media kit, so long as the key information below is organized and communicated:

• Publication overview: Who are you and what’s your purpose? This is an opportunity to lay out your value proposition, objective and mission to potential partners. 
  
  
• Audience demographics: Before doing any advertiser outreach, likely, you’ve already done some work to understand who your audience is. Placing an ad in your publication is an opportunity for your partners to reach this audience, so it’s important to show that work.
  
  
• Product overview: This will show what ad and sponsorship opportunities are available to potential partners. You can include details like dimensions and size, placement types (banner, newsletter, or in-article), pricing, publication schedule and intended duration of advertising placements.
  
  
• Testimonials: Once you’ve had a successful advertising partnership, you may want to include this as a case study in your media kit. This study should demonstrate the value you created for an advertising partner and draw on quantitative data, such as a clear uptick in sales with your targeted readership due to an advertising campaign.
  
  For certain partners that you have a strong relationship with, you may even want to include a reference contact. You can also include a quote or two from readers talking about what they like about the publication/the value it provides. 
  
  
• Ad specifications: Sometimes overlooked, it’s important to include what effort you will need from your prospective partner. This will include the exact dimensions of ads, required file format, resolution and deadline. 
  
  
• Contact information: While it’s likely your prospect has information on how to contact you, including your contact information in the media kit removes the chance of them losing your contact after a long decision period. And if any of your advertising partners want to refer to your publication, they simply need to pass along your media kit.
  
  
• Branding and text: Keep it simple with consistent branding. Don't include a ton of text and keep everything short and punchy. Also, use graphics and other visual elements whenever possible.

You may be interested in: 
📚”How to make effective ads that readers actually respond to” 
📚”Navigating sponsored content: A guide for newsrooms and publishers”
📚“Ad revenue essentials for newsrooms and independent publishers”

Don’t wait until you have the perfect media kit

A media kit is a simple package that publishers share with advertisers to showcase their value, advertising options, and—most importantly—their rates. However, publishers don’t need to wait for a flawless media kit to start selling ads.

Ramona Wildeman, Indiegraf’s Partnerships Manager, encourages publishers not to hold off on selling ads just because their media kit isn’t picture-perfect. All you need is a clear, compelling pitch about what your publication brings to the table, some basic audience demographics, and a snapshot of your performance—like open rates or click-through traffic—for the ads running on your website or newsletter. Start with what you have, and the rest can come together as you go!

“If you’ve got 5,000 subscribers, that’s 5,000 people — you don’t need to have something fancy. All you need is a compelling statement about what you have to offer as a publication, any audience demographics, and the basics of your open rate or click-through traffic for wherever your ads are running on your website or newsletter. ” - Ramona Wildeman, Indiegraf’s Partnerships Manager

Tips to make media kits stand out

One way to make your media kit stand out is to construct it with customized portions that you can tailor for your intended ad partner. For example, a media kit with a cover letter addressing your targeted prospect directly and a brief summary of why you think an advertising partnership will be successful can help you stand out from the crowd.

In addition, thinking about the sections of your kit as modular to meet your specific prospect’s needs is a good rule of thumb if you are trying to leave a strong impression. For example, instead of including all of your audience demographics, you may want to develop several options for the various segments of your audience and include only the one most relevant to your prospect. 

By thinking through other potential bespoke approaches to each section such as case studies, you can ensure your media kit tells a story tailored to your prospect, which is far more likely to stick with them.

What if I haven’t sold any advertising yet?

If you’re creating your first media kit, consider being transparent about how you introduce your advertising products and approach. For example, communicating to your early prospects that you’re just getting started is a good tactic. Or you could consider offering free or discounted ad placements to sweeten the deal for partners on their first ad. 

"Advertisements can be easier money. Selling advertisements might feel icky, weird and/or hard when you first start. Some startup newsrooms have sworn it off entirely. In my experience, advertising can often be easier money than reader revenue. It takes quite a long time for readers to trust a publication enough to donate.” -Sam Hoisington, Indiegraf’s Publisher Partnerships Manager

WATCH ON DEMAND: HOW TO GET STARTED SELLING YOUR FIRST ADS

Are media kits still relevant?

Media kits remain highly relevant in ad and sponsorship sales today. The proliferation of automated ad sales has only made that more true. By selling direct advertising, you are not simply selling exposure to your audience but you are proposing a long-standing relationship between you and your prospective partners. Clear, transparent, and easy-to-access information is foundational to any business relationship — and a media kit can help build this.

📌 Your media kit plays a key role in ad sales—see how it fits into a complete ad strategy in our website and newsletter ads guide.

Has your audience plateaued? Don’t know how to grow reader revenue? No time to improve your ad sales strategy? Over 120 publishers have used Indiegraf’s services to scale up their news businesses.

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