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I sell ads on my social network of 9 million+ to small businesses, but I want to sell higher priced ads to corporations. How do I start?

I have a lot of followers in sports in the 13-30 demo, mainly on Instagram. I sell a ton of micro-ads to very small businesses. The leaders in my field are selling these ads for 5-10 times more to better companies. I'm feeling stuck. I made a website for my network: numediaagency.com, but I want to make this a main revenue source in 2017 and I'm wondering what the steps would be. What do I need to prepare? How should I contact them? Should I go through a middleman/agency? Should I hire a biz dev guy? What would you suggest?

Online Advertising

Sponsorship Sales

Andrew Lee Miller answered

I would really need to see the ads that you're selling to be able to suggest what method to scale them with... but you hit the nail on the head...You have two options really...building internal sales processes or going through an agency. Usually companies go through an agency first, to get professional handholding in "sales product" development...ie. they help you scale your pricing and ad units and offerings...and get your foot in the door with bigger clients...but you can do a short term contract with most agencies...say 6 months...so that after 6 months you are in a much better spot to handle it on your own and stop paying 30% to an agency...

Lee von Kraus answered

I'd recommend one of the many services you can sign up for that facilitate connecting influencers with companies:

https://famebit.com
http://www.revfluence.com/
https://advowire.com/
https://izea.com/
https://www.tapinfluence.com/influencers/

Here's a review of those, and many other services from the advertisers point of view (which will help you choose too):
http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/content-blvd/popular-influencer-marketing-platforms-reviewed-01549843#TiKjqjqwDkk6RBws.97

Evan Weber answered

There are media companies you can use to get to the advertisers directly, through them. Flatiron Media comes to mind (http://flatironmedia.com/), I'm sure there are other. They have a roster of advertisers they buy media for from sites for their clients which are advertisers.