Ad Sales Blog

Seporate or integrated sales forces? The case for seporate

“Someone needs to wake up every morning and focus on the Internet,” he said, adding that this person has to always consider how to increase the value of the net."

So said Meredith’s chief development officer, John Zieser at the FIPP Worldwide Magazine Marketplace (WMM) conference held in the UK December last year. 

But Zieser also advocates integration, "However, to prevent net sales person and print sales persons from tripping over one another, there has to be one person overseeing everything in the brand, stewarding the brand across difference channels. For the brand’s biggest clients, though, there has to be 360 degree teams managing them across the media options, especially since most agencies today ask for print and multimedia “bundles”.

Here in the US I there is a trend toward staff integration so I thought it important to post a contrasting view. As with most things publishing, your clients should decide for you. If they are asking for integrated proposals, you need to integrate your staff.   

Read more of Zieser's comments on the FIPP website

 

Push vs. pull

As I enthusiastically pitched the latest, coolest, online marketing product my client cut me short, "I sell a dull product. Nobody will click on a banner to read more about it. People buy it because they need it, and when they don’t need it they don’t want to know anything more about it."
The core benefit on online media is engagement. But what happens when your client is selling a dull product and true engagement unlikely?

For many, there is another category of dull products getting a lot of attention these days, presidential candidates. With many contests extremely close it is often not the engaged, well informed voter who decides elections, rather the undecided, unengaged swing voter who might see all candidates as very dull.

That is why we see a curious pattern of media spending.  While all candidates are using the Internet to raise money and engage their base of voters, the vast bulk of the outgoing media spend is on television because it is a "push" media.

According to eMarketer on those undecided voters...

"Generally speaking these are the typical targets who are difficult to reach using the Internet. That’s why in this political season, 50-80% of ad budgets are going into television, whereas only 1-2% of political ad budgets are spent online. It’s not to say the candidates are not using the Internet to their huge advantage, Barack Obama’s amazing online funding machine has proved to be the key advantage to his success. But when it comes to reaching out towards the uninterested, the uninvolved, and the even bored participants, very often traditional media there’s a big advantage over the newer online ones.”

On a call.
If your advertiser’s product is very dull, put the  "engagement" talk on the back burner and talk about the virtues of “push” media. Push media succeeds in these situations because viewing the ads is not voluntary. When you are selling very dull products forget about "permission marketing" you need to recommend "push." Now share the story, stated above, about the presidential race. Now sell the push media you have, Print media, television, and radio are "push media." For online media sell e-blasts, which “push” a message to a target audience's inbox.  

Estimates as to how much has been spent so far this year online on political campaigns (not much):        

 

Engage or die

Denise Shiffman’s new book "Age of Engage" is insightful, illuminating, and potentially terrifying for media sales people. Shiffman lays bare what the marketers we sell our ads to will be expecting in the next 10 years and sees a future requiring different skill sets and media products. In this world media consumers demand total engagement and control over the content we now dispense at our discretion.

Although she offers little specific advice on transforming our current products into Web 2.0 versions she clearly describes what expectations of all Web products and services must be. Here is a handy chart from the book describing expectations of the old vs. new Web:  

According to Denise:

"The original, static Web drew millions of companies online to offer information about their products, and to sell their wares. The second coming of the Web has transformed the online marketplace into an interactive, personal, and communal space. Consumers have been transformed from passive viewers and choosers to active and powerful beacons collectively creating winners and losers. Breaking through the clutter of voices in this new marketplace is an audacious challenge for any marketer. E-mail, viral, search, social, widgets, avatars, authenticity,and story make up the new language. New media, tools, and technologies have to be mastered to remain in the game. In this reinvention
of marketing, it is the fast, the unique, the innovative and creative, the socially connected, and most importantly, those who engage their audience that will win."

How well will your next media products engage your community? Your future could depend on it. 

Download and read the first chapter of "Age of Engage" for free

Article in Chief Marketer on the book

Study: Branding wins proposals

One of the big challenges in selling advertising as a brand builder is that some respond, “But I don’t have time to build my brand, I need sales now!”

Here is a great study that can make the connection between brand building and immediate sales.

A member survey of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals, yes there really is an association for everything, discovered that when a proposal is accompanied by a strong brand that is consistently presented, it is simply more successful.

Use it on a sales call.

Brands sell. Doesn’t every client know this? While they may agree with it intellectually that does not always motivate them to shift dollars from their selling functions (sales staff, CRM solutions) to brand building tools (brand advertising). This study can make the the connection: a better brand consistently presented equals more accepted proposals.

From the study: 

"Considering the fact that branding can account for more than 30 percent of the value of a company, protecting the brand by sending a consistent message in presentation materials is critical."

"When prospective clients read proposals, they look for the brand to assure them that the company will stand behind the promises it makes in the proposal and that the quality of products and services specified are backed by the brand."

Download the study

Docs prefer print!

No matter what sector or industry you are in, this is a great study to sell the value of print advertising. The study released this March from consulting firm, "What Doctors Think" documents how physicians prefer to receive their professional information, and magazines top of their list. The study has implications beyond just medical  magazines because of the importance and prestige doctors have. The study, with 231 physicians responding, also covered a variety of other perceptions doctors have on the media that serve them.

Use it on a call.

Talk about the importance physicians play in our society. Talk about how, unlike almost any other profession, the information they receive will impact life or death decisions. Then show them the chart. When information absolutely must be accurate and trusted, magazines deliver.

There is another reason to use this study. On April 4th I posted on the just released MediaVest study that measured the amount of trust consumers felt for different media in four major categories. In the fashion, food, and entertainment fields, magazines were found to be most trusted, but in health and wellness onlline sources were tops. Michael Turro posted a comment raising the concern that had print fallen behind with readers in the only category, "that could kill them." Cheer up print reps! You can now use this study in conjunction with the MediaVest study. While consumers may find online media in the health and wellness field more trustworthy than pint, doctors do not agree.

Download the entire "What Doctors Think" study

My April 4th  post on the MediaVest study

Are you good looking enough to be a rep?

You might not like this.

A recent poll of Cafepharma visitors, a website for salespeople in the Pharmaceutical industry, asked how a salesperson's physical attractiveness effects their selling. The survey was posted with a big helping of skeptical humor with the only three possible answers to the question, "Which type of rep gets the best results?" being:

1. An average looking rep that knows their products and can sell.

2. Doesn't matter. Too many other factors come into play regarding sales.

3. A super attractive rep that is an idiot and can't sell.

A bit over 17%, about one in six, picked #3.

.

Some may find this funny, some not. But it raises a serious question of how we as individual salespeople differentiate ourselves in the field. If what we sell and how we sell it becomes a commodity...what's left? 

Do you have to be attractive to be a media sales rep? I don't think so. But many may disagree.

 

 

See the study on Cafepharma and read responses to it 

Recommend a URL in the next ad

One way to sell more print ad space is to encourage your advertisers to add a campaign and magazine specific URL to their next print ad. It is one extra step. But here is what happens; a readers sees the ad and is motivated to search the Internet for more information. By using a campaign and magazine specific URL the advertiser can track which campaign and which magazine drove the reader to their website.

A post on Clickz by James Hering offered tips on how to use campaign specific URLs. Hering references research that indicates many do not like to enter long URLs with a lot of extra slash marks. As result, some marketers now favor campaign specific URLs, often based on the the tag line of the campaign:

Examples include:

Burger King: haveityourway.com and subservientchicken.com

Mitsubishi: seewhathappens.com

Subaru: need-desire.com

Universal Studios: iwantmyvacation.com

Lincoln Mercury: oneandonlyclearance.com

Dish Network: stopfeedingthepig.com

Audi: neverfollow.com

Now add the magazine initials or just a number to designate a specific media and your client can have it all. Is it better to use a custom campaign URL or extensions of the brand URL? Using the brand URL, of course, reinforces the brand. Which approach is better? The answer: the one that gets your advertiser to include a magazine specific reference so your media gets tracked!

Read Hearing's column on Clickz