OJR 2006: Finding an ad rep for your website

By Robert Niles: We will have a full recap of OJR 2006's third session, on business issues, Tuesday morning. But I wanted to raise what was one of the questions that emerged from that session: Where can an online journalist publishing his own website find a sales rep to sell sponsorships for his site?

We addressed a variety of ad network options during the session, but at the conference and over drinks afterward, several publishers expressed interest in finding a person to make sales pitches on behalf of their sites to potential sponsors.

This is different than looking for an ad network to join. These journalists are looking for someone to make a pitch for *just* their specialty niche sites. But none of them are large enough to afford a full-time rep. And most of them expressed fear at trying such pitches themselves. After all, the folks at OJR 2006 were journalists, not sales people. Asking one of us to make a sales pitch is like asking a salesperson to write a feature story. Forget the ethical implications for a moment: The result would be just plain ugly.

So there's a market here for a freelance sales rep, someone who pitches sites the way a freelance Web designer creates them. Someone who understands niche online media and who is willing to work with a string of unrelated small business clients.

Just as we found dozens of former old media journalists who have moved online to start their own businesses, surely there must be some folks on the other side of the advertising "wall" who have made the same move to online entrepreneurship. If that describes you, or someone you know, holler this way. We're looking for you.

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