What should a local newsletter media kit include?

A media kit's job is to make the advertiser picture their business in your newsletter. Everything else is supporting detail.

Most local advertisers don't know what a newsletter ad is. They ask where their ad goes and what that even means. The kit has to answer that in one glance.

What's the most persuasive thing in a media kit?

The ad-slot preview. A scrollable screenshot of a real, full newsletter, with the primary and secondary ad slots marked right on it. I've drawn those callouts by hand in Canva. That's the strongest sales tool I've given reps.

"Inside here, scroll. Here's your ad right here, primary ad. Here's what a newsletter looks like. Here's where the secondary ad would be. They can visually see and understand it super easily."

My favorite layout: the whole newsletter scrolls on the left side of the page, and the brand information sits on the right. When the design brief went to my AI tools, I asked for a kit that would impress a $5 million to $10 million local business spending thousands on marketing, because that's who we're trying to become a line item for. Check how it works on mobile.

The next step is a pitch link, which I made the first priority in our ad system plan. An operator types in a business name and website. The system pulls the logo, photos and description and produces one shareable link showing:

• That business's mocked-up ad inside a real recent issue
• A homepage ad
• A story about them
• A social post
• The price menu and a way to say yes

An existing customer showed me a similar tool and asked me to build one. It's the difference between "here's our kit" and "here's you, in our newsletter, Monday."

What numbers should go in it?

The biggest honest numbers you have, in words a business owner understands. My lessons from redoing my own kit:

• Skip open rate and click rate on the one-pager. Most local business owners don't know what those are. Say "20,000 people read this" instead.
• Use monthly, not weekly. Weekly is a smaller number and usually leaves out social.
• Add up every channel. Newsletter plus Facebook plus Instagram. When one salesperson's kit said 14,000 weekly impressions, I checked Meta Insights, found about 42,000 Facebook views and almost 44,000 Instagram views in under a month, and told her to say 100K-plus impressions a month.
• Try a yearly total. Something like 1.6 million impressions for the year is another honest frame.
• Audience profile from signup surveys. One kit of mine says mostly 65% female and 70% earning over $100K, because we ask when people subscribe.
• Why a newsletter. People choose to open it and read it top to bottom.

Social spikes count. I posted a photo of myself at the bar when a Texas Roadhouse opened in Leander. It got about 150,000 views on Facebook alone. Post often, find the ones that blow up, and cite that reach.

A media-sales consultant I talked to went the other way on small details: use slightly conservative figures, like 55% instead of 58% open rate, so you over-deliver. A peer on another call said advertisers don't mind a number that's a bit off, only one that's way off.

Should the kit show prices?

Mostly no. The smart ad sellers I've talked to don't post prices, because big brands should pay a lot more than a tiny new business. A posted price caps you. You want a sales conversation: what are your goals, how do you get clients, what's a client worth?

Michael Kauffman told me on my podcast he keeps prices out of his kit. When pressed, he gives a starting number to see if you're in the same range. I had a custom home builder lead who emailed only "just tell me what you charge," so have that starting number ready.

When you do need a number, my guidance for someone starting out: take what you can early, around $150 to $200 for a single ad. The goal is $500 to $1,500 a month on as long a contract as you can get. A year is ideal, six months is fine, three is workable.

I treat it as a per-newsletter choice. One kit can have prices and a buy button. Another can say "reach out to us."

What are the three kinds of media kit?

A one-pager gets someone interested. Its only job is to get them on a call: no price, no confusing metrics, just reach and a picture of where the ad goes. A four- or five-page packet with graphs and demographics is for people who are already interested.

My media kit builder, which I built with Claude, has three modes:

1. Standard. Hero section, the brands, big numbers, the sponsor preview. For anyone who asks.
2. Custom. The same kit with the prospective sponsor's name and a recommended plan.
3. Proposal. Built to close the deal after the sales conversation.

Making and updating kits by hand was one of my biggest headaches. The fix I'm building is pre-made kits with audience data that updates live.

Website link, PDF or printed?

I prefer a link. A web page is easy to edit when dates or numbers change, and a hosted version can show who opened it and when. Advertisers sometimes still want a PDF to forward, and you can convert the page when they ask.

You may still want paper. A sales rep on one client team said the digital tool alone wasn't enough in the field. She wanted a printed, laminated one-sheet with the pricing tiers. If your rep walks into businesses, give them something to hand over.

How do I get the kit to the right people?

• Ask subscribers. A "do you own a local business?" survey question with a "send me your media kit" button. That reaches 10 to 15% of each new cohort. If they say yes, I email the kit whether they asked or not.
• Put "Advertise Here" at the top of every issue. Something like "want to get in front of 7,000 locals? Click here." One apartment business found us exactly that way, as a reader. I found broken and missing links across my own newsletters and made fixing them a priority.
• Make them give their info first. The click goes to a page asking for name, email and business before the kit appears, so nobody sees it anonymously. It drops into the CRM and triggers outreach. I think that's how the big players do it.
• One central inquiry page. Instead of scattered forms, we set up a single private page as a test that trades the media kit for company and industry details and writes to one CRM, starting in one market.

Watch for duplicates. My media buyer pointed out business owners could get the kit twice if two paths both fire.

The advertise page should pitch before it prices: numbers, areas covered, reader profile, a video testimonial from a current advertiser, a list of other advertisers, and category exclusivity. Magazines run seven ads for seven insurance agencies in one issue. Promising one per category is a big selling point.

Should advertisers be able to buy straight from the kit?

For simple, standard inventory, eventually. The plan was a buy-now path with Stripe for standard slots, while bigger cross-channel packages create a lead for a person to follow up. I decided self-serve checkout wasn't worth prioritizing yet, even though the system was ready for it. The blocker for single-ad checkout is the coordination work per ad, not the price. Build the operations side first.

When we did launch a version-one self-serve page, it had one sale. What it lacked was a real media kit with reader count and survey results. That won't make a million people buy. It raises the close rate of the people who click. For fulfillment, a written process and a templated email asking for five photos was enough.

For proposals, contracts and payment, I started using HoneyBook. It walks the sponsor through it in order: here's the proposal, they pick one, here's the contract, sign it, here's the link to pay. A podcast guest used a different tool, Sponsi. Each is probably better in some ways and worse in others.