Advertising services

Tender description

Basildon Borough Council is refreshing its quarterly residents’ publication; moving from a newspaper style of publication to a magazine format. The Councils’ current residents’ publication; The Borough Diary is distributed to 75 000 households with the remainder made available in the Basildon Centre and libraries. Currently, 78 000 copies are printed by an external print management agency, Editorial content and design is produced in-house. Distribution is contracted to an external distribution agency. We are looking for a company to take over selling the advertising space within the magazine. Basildon Borough Council is reformatting its quarterly residents’ publication, The Borough Diary, from currently a newspaper style, into a magazine format. It is produced four times a year and distributed door to door across the borough – to approximately 78 000 households. 83 000 copies are produced with the remainder made available in the Basildon Centre and libraries. Editorial content and design for the newspaper is produced in-house and distribution and print is contracted to external suppliers. Through the residents’ publication the council seeks to deliver information about council services, promote things to do and places to go in the borough, help people get a better understanding about how their council tax is spent and how their borough is changing, how they can get involved in improving their area and to showcase positive aspects of the borough and its communities. We envisage a 32-page publication, produced in the same numbers and to continue door-to-door distribution. In order to fund this change of format and to continue offering value to council taxpayers, Basildon Borough Council is seeking to appoint an advertising sales agency, to generate revenue by selling up to 10 pages of each quarterly magazine to advertisers in each publication. The successful agency will be responsible for generating advertising leads and making sales on behalf of the council and will need to communicate clearly to all those involved. It is vital for the agency to understand the needs of the council and potential clients, through liaising closely with them, on a regular basis. You'll also manage administrative work to ensure that artwork is supplied in the appropriate format to the Editor of the council magazine, to ensure that advertising projects are completed on time and on budget.