Ad Sales Blog

Keep the “pure plays” from cleaning your clock!

It is happening right now in many many industries and sectors. Web only competitors, "pure play" online publishers, are sneaking in and winning ad sales away from the online products of print publishers. How can they do this? Don’t we have an insurmountable advantage by having a print product continually advancing our brand in the physical world? How do the pure play Internet companies even stand a chance?

"Pure plays" routinely beat the products of print based publishers because they design a new newsletter, webinar, web section, or website, by starting with a clean sheet of paper. Since they have no print vehicle to get them started the "pure plays" design a media product desperate for attention. Every click through they get has is funneled from somewhere else so there has to be an amazingly good reason for a visit. This “clean sheet of paper” approach results in a high emphasis on focus and functionality. It takes an extremely sharp content focus to stand out against the millions of online destinations and when a visitor arrives there must be a high functionality that keeps visitors coming back.               

Print people are spoiled. Too often when a magazine launches a web product the editorial focus the same or similar to the positioning as the print product. As for functionality, too often the mission statement is, “To extend the magazine brand onto to the Internet.” Big mistake. Your website needs its own editorial focus, and mission. While it should compliment your print product it cannot just extend it.

To compete, pretend your print product does not exist, then ask, "Given all online destinations and content on the web, why should anyone visit my website?" To beat the pure play publishers, you have to think like one. You too have to start with that clean sheet of paper and work your way forward.

The credit card gremlin in your subscription renewals

When your publication goes to renew subscriptions there is a near invisible problem that can become huge...it's all about credit cards, and Paul Larsen has the answers. Why credit cards? I asked Larsen about it prior to this talk at the MarketingSherpa "Selling Online Subscription Summit 2008".

Why are credit cards such a problem for online subscription marketers?

As times goes on, things happen to credit cards, those things inadvertently cause the relationship between a merchant and a customer to break. I help publishers and merchants understand what they can do pro-actively and reactively to mitigate the damage that comes over time.

But what’s the big deal? Don’t most subscriptions just roll over and bill the credit card automatically?

No. When they go on an anniversary date to bill you will typically face problems with over 40% of those credit cards.

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How bad can this get?

Hannaford, the East Coast grocery chain just experienced huge breach of their credit card files. That means that millions of credit card accounts are going to be shut down and new cards are going to be issued. All of the continuity and subscription relationships that were based on the previous card are going to blow up, people are going to show up at Easy Pass and they’re going to get a red light and it’s not going to change to green because they forgot that the credit card that was shut down because of the Hannaford breach.

You can read about this at this link. Aside from this costing Hannaford about $250 million to fix, they faced thousands of angry customers who had their compromised credit cards replaced. Next time their credt card connection failed them going through Easy-Pass they will blame Hannaford!

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Isn't this a problem for IT, not for sales managers, marketers, and publishers?

When I first spoke at Marketing Sherpa, a marketing conference, 3 years ago, 20 glassy eyed merchants came up to me after my presentation and said, “I’ve got this problem, and I don’t know what to do about it, and it’s killing my bottom line.” These issues may start as computer problems but very quickly become sales and marketing problems.

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What can subscription marketers do about all this?

The primarily issue is churn and it’s churn that happens within a brand that causes re-issuing, and there’s also churn that results from competition between brands (credit card brands),there are billion credit solicitations sent to people’s mailboxes so there’s tremendous competition between credit card brands as well.

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Larsen identifies 5 major problem areas: Re issuance of credit cards, competition between credit card , credit limits, and softening economy, those are the four. The fifth one is poor transaction handling.

Next time you try to renew those magazine subscriptions. Look out for the credit card problems!!!

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Preventative measures: Larsen's best practices on what to do:

Download best_practices_why_and_what_3.doc

RFPs from both sides now

RFPs are a game. As a best practice for buyers, RFPs simplify the buying process and weed out media that is off the mark allowing more time with more appropriate media. But with buyers under pressure to make decisions more quickly, RFPs get misused. When they become the primary tool of evaluation, insightful media buying sufferers.   

James Hering writing for The ClickZ Network back in 2003 posed this summation showing both sides of the sales desk.

From the seller side, we hear:

• "So I'm supposed to tell you why my site is better than the 180 other sites that received an RFP?"
• "Great, another 'we expect totally out-of-the-box thinking' proposal!"
• "Gee, we get a grand total of two hours to pull together a rock-solid proposal that nails the objective. How convenient."
• "We're honored to be invited to be a strategic partner and meet the client's long-term goals with the exciting test budget of $5,000?"

From the buyer side:

• "Why don't publishers respond to my requests in a timely manner?"
• "Ten seconds after emailing the RFP, I get a call with questions for the same information that's noted in it. Didn't he read it?"
• "I asked for a proposal with a limit of $20,000, yet I get a package for $50,000. What's up with that?"
• "I clearly asked for specific targeting criteria, yet 80 percent of what they're offering doesn't meet the stated objectives."

Hering makes the following suggestions for media sellers: 

Timing is key. Responding in a timely manner is fundamental to a buyer who is trying to wrangle several proposals. Always acknowledge when you get an RFP and note if you plan to participate. (Note to sales managers: Make sure you properly transition accounts. Nothing is more frustrating to a buyer than sending an important request to a dead email account or blank voicemail box.)

• Respond appropriately. If the RFP is not clear about where questions should be directed, find out how you can inquire, then provide questions in written form.
• Read the proposal from top to bottom at least twice before you ask your first question. You'll be amazed at how things can become clearer after a second reading.
• Meet the request. Sure, you've got sales goals, but be sure to totally address the request first. Then, provide additional options. Let's face it, almost everyone loves options. Still, we all get turned off if our initial request is overlooked. Nail the request (including the budget), then up-sell all you want.
• No rug-pulling, please. Make sure the inventory is there when you sell it. If it's perishable, just make sure the buyer knows the details and any corresponding restrictions. Nothing will drive a buyer insane faster than getting a client excited about an opportunity only to have to call back 10 minutes later with an "Oops, we didn't have all the details" apology.

Just keep in mind, every time you get an RFP someone is inviting you to do business with them!

Read Hering's post on Clickz

Barack Vs. Hillary: the online media buy

Looking for a way to dramatize the importance of using online media on your next sales call? Talk about the Barack Vs. Hillary media buy!

It has been widely publicized how Obama has used the Internet to gain advantage both in raising money and awareness in his pursuit of the Democratic Presidential nomination. The numbers speak for themselves; according to the Washington Post, Obama raised $91 million online in January and February of 2008 versus only $37 million raised by Clinton. How did he do it?

Obama out spent Clinton in online media and did so by paying far less on traditional media advice. Here is the spend from January to March 2008 for both candidates:    

Spending Category        Barack Obama   Hillary Clinton
Google                          $1,000,000             $67,000
Yahoo Web Ads                  $99,341               $9,186
Yahoo Search Ads               $58,000                     $0
Facebook                             $4,900                     $0
Web Consultants                 $93,162                    $0
Ad Consultant                       n/a               $997,000
Media Consultant                  n/a            $2,540,000

Obama spent far more on the web media itself and hired a relatively inexpensive web consultant. Clinton spent far more on traditional ad and media consultants. On these reported media expenses Clinton out spent Obama 3 to 1, but Obama's online presence has performed far better.

Hey, this online stuff seems to work! 

Read about this on WebGuild

Magazines are top source of readership trust

According to a study by MediaVest, magazines are more trusted than online for content in the three areas of entertainment, food/cooking, and fashion/beauty. But online is more trusted for health/wellness information.

Here are the five key findings of the study:

1. Print is more trusted than online in every category but Health/Wellness. Readers find print more trustworthy than online by a margin of 24 percentage points for Fashion/Beauty, 7 points for Food/Cooking, and 5 points for Entertainment.

2. Readers find online Health/Wellness more trustworthy online than in print by a margin of 3 points. Despite the abundance of online content, few see online replacing print, with just 12% of respondents strongly believing that a publisher’s website could easily replace the printed magazine within the next 5 years.

3. Titles fail to deliver value online. 79% of dual magazine/online users agree that the online site should provide something new & different from the magazine. However, only 44% strongly believe that the publishers' sites are actually offering something unique.

4. Low duplication between print and online. Hovering between 1% and 6% for all categories but entertainment, where for certain titles, duplication reaches 10% at most.5. Fashion/Beauty relies most faithfully on the printed publication, as it focuses on general trends. People are seven times more likely to go to the print publication for this category.

Read the original press release: Print Trumps Internet as Primary Source of Readership Trust

Ad Age reports the story: "Print More Trusted Source of Information Than Internet"

Magazines are a top Web driver

Yet another study supports the strength of magazines as an online traffic driver. BIGresearch's August 07 released "Simultaneous Media Survey" of 15,439 consumers shows magazines as the top off line media driving web traffic. Here is the chart that tells the tale: 

Use it on a call:

This study does NOT say that magazines generate more web traffic than online media, such as web banners etc. This study compares off line media (with the odd exception of Email advertising"). The argument you have to first make, on a call, is that people still spend most of their lives OFF line. Then preset the case for magazines as the top offline web traffic builder for when those off line people get back on line.

  Press release of the top line results