Ad Sales Blog

How print ads help generate web leads

Let’s talk about yellow page advertising. Here’s a form of advertising designed to elicit a response. Telmetrics, an advertising call tracking company released data earlier this month demonstrating the power of a unique URL as part of a print ad.

Telmetrics measured how many solid sales leads came from yellow page ads and compared how many came from a reader picking up the phone, versus reading a URL on the ad and responding online. 

Company president Bill Dinan made the assumption that most survey respondents would say they picked up the phone to engage the advertiser. He was correct, but surprised at how close it was when only 56% of leads came in via phone calls, and 44% came through a direct response of the URL printed on the ad. The study also discovered that unique URLs like  CallFlorists2.com were more often visited than client specific domains with URL extensions like Publisher.com/florists. If you want your print ad to generate a response keep the URL in the ad and keep it unique and simple.

Read the Telmetrics report

Recession clients who most buy webinars, white papers, and social media

When selling media in a recession, results matter. So. sponsorships that generate sales leads can be among the most recession resistant you will sell. A new research report I did for the Customer Collective, “What is Your Recession Sales Strategy.” finds that different kinds of companies buy depending on the kind of company they are. 

According to the survey, which queried a national sample of sales and marketing managers, entrepreneurial companies have dramatically embraced the use of social media for sales prospecting, mid-sized companies and multinationals lead in the use of webinars, while mid-sized companies lead in the use of white papers. Here are the results in detail: 

 

Social media:

According the study, 74.1% of self described entrepreneurial companies report that as a result of the recession they will be using social media for prospecting more often. In addition, 67.3% of small businesses, 49.3% of mid-sized companies, while only 45.9% of multinational corporations will do the same.

 

Webinars:

 Mid-sized companies and multinational corporations lead in the use of webinars sales lead generation.

The study found that 38.8% of mid-sized companies and 36.1% of multinational corporations will use more webinars to generate sales leads because of the recession. Only 28.4% of entrepreneurial companies and 24.5% of small businesses will do the same.

 

White papers:

When it comes to using white papers, mid-sized companies lead the way.

38.8% of mid-sized companies report they will use white papers more often to generate sales leads as a result of a recession while only 24.5% of small businesses, 23.5% of entrepreneurial companies, and 19.7% of multinational corporations plan on doing the same.

 

 

The recession will mean a growth in the use of webinars by multinational corporations and mid-sized companies, growth in the use of social media for prospecting among entrepreneurial companies, and growth in the use of white papers for lead generation among mid-sized companies.

As you look to your own media territories to generate sales leads, factor this in!

More about the Free Customer Collective white paper/survey

Download the study for free 

Will linkinars be your next big money maker?

  Linkinars are the poor cousin to webinars but are quicker and cheaper to put on. As result, linkinars offer the potential to do more online events at a higher profit margin.

According to linkinar.com, "A linkinar is an online presentation illustrated with a sequence of web links. Typically, audience and presenter access a live telephone line together as the presenter directs the audience to click on a series of links to illustrate points being made."

Because there are only two services required to put on a linkinar and both are nearly free for most content publishers it is worth consideration. The first is a group telephone line, the second is access by the audience to a web page where the presenter can post a series of web links.

You promote and monetize a linkinar the same way you would a webinar. You still collect sales leads for sponsors by requiring attendee registration and offer "signage" for sponsors.   

For a one hour linkinar typically between 7-15 links work best. The person directing the linkinar introduces the call and directs people to click on the first link. Everyone one on the call does so. After the some discussion the linkinar leader moves to the second link and so on. In essence, the links illustrate the talk very inexpensively.

On the negative side, linkinars do not have the upscale graphical appeal of webinars, and cannot accommodate video. Linkinars are low tech.     

But you can put together a linkinar with almost no preparation time and cost. You just need an expert who has a subject to cover and knows where to find supporting content on the web.  

The best use of a linkinar comes when you use links to content on your own own website and blog(s). Doing this you can build web traffic as well as revenue.  

More information at www.linkinar.com

On selling webinar sponsorships
 

Should content publishers compete with search?

Maybe not. When David Churbuck, Vice President, Global Web Marketing, at Lenovo spoke at the Folio show earlier this week he showed the audience this slide showing how this major PC maker spends its ad dollars. As with many marketers these days, "search" is the largest spend.  

All magazine publishers have felt the impact of marketers’ moving their dollars online and most magazines have online products to sell. But the 800 pound gorilla online is search.

After the speech I asked Churbuck how the content publishers in the audience should pursue his online ad dollars in light of the big spend on search.

His advice was for content publishers not try to compete with search but to develop their offerings in a different direction. He uses content based media, both online and print, to brand his company while using search to drive sales. He is more interested in doing business with content publishers who offer him media to help his branding efforts than just lead generating.

You've been "optimized" off the schedule

Has this happened to you?

A digital ad agency representing a Fortune 500 corporation sends you an RFP for a two week online campaign. You respond professionally and promptly. Like a shock, word comes back, they are in! The news travels through your organization like wild fire, "We just broke into a Fortune 500 Corporation's digital ad budget!" As dozens of congratulatory e-mails surge through your company the future looks bright. The media runs. The media stops running. There is no follow up RFP. You can't get the media buyer on the phone and she does not respond to your emails. When you finally hear back, the response is one sentence apologizing for the delay in getting back and a mention that your media will not be considered for the future of the campaign. Ouch! What happened?

Here is how someone at the digital agency described the same process:
"We had a three month campaign to buy media for. In the first two weeks we ran three different versions of the creative in several size configurations. We ran ads in a wide range of websites to test the response.

We ran the two week test, then optimized the buy.

Of the three creative treatments, the one offering a free download performed best. Of the three ad sizes the leader board size performed best. We tried 30 different websites and found that eleven performed best so we continued with them and dropped the rest."

On your next call.

Don’t be discouraged by this process. On the surface it may look like media evaluation is out of your control. Not true. While results rule the day, PEOPLE still evaluate the results. Your job is to help your buyer understand why a response from your unique visitor is more valuable, or at least different, from any other. When your respond to an online RFP make sure the buyer understands what kind of response they can expect from your media AND why that response is important for the campaign. Do this at the time of the sale, not later. Selling media is still selling. To be successful, you need to sell the unique value of your visitor and his or her response BEFORE it runs.

Become a marketing hero: talk about their web site

As more marketers see their website as the hub of their marketing efforts, reviewing that site before calling on them becomes essential. But you are not an expert on their business. What can you actually speak credibly about that a client will listen to? 

Simple. Talk about your readers, their site visitors. Look carefully at their home page and think about your magazine/brand's readers and how they would respond.

Never criticize your client’s website. The marketing manager you are calling on could be it's architect. But if you can engage your client in a dialog about trends effecting your readers and advocate prioritizing future content you can help advance their online marketing goals. 

 The sad truth is that many websites are not constructed with a company’s customers, your readers, in mind. Many websites first fulfill internal political goals, or are designed against the claims of competitors. Primary reader benefits can take a back seat. If you discover this sharing your readers point of view, in noncritical way by talking about future content, can make you a marketing hero.  

At the recent "Selling Online Subscriptions" conference put on by MarketingSherpa, Linda Ragano, from ThomasNet shared this a piece of research that documented a disconnect between what manufacturers posted on their websites, versus what the targeted buyers actually wanted to see. 

On a call.

If you sense this kind of disconnect on your client's site use Linda's slide as a third party example to make the point in a noncritical way. Say, "In some industries (read: not yours) there is disconnect between what readers/visitors want to see on a web site and what gets posted. Show the chart. Then share insights you have about your readers/their site visitors might like to see in the future. Focusing on the future is a good way to share your knowledge without being critical of the present. Your client can then go to management and say, "Look what we can do to improve things in the future." Both you and your client become marketing heros.   

From the ThomasNet presentation at the Selling Online
Subscriptions Summit 2008:

"The Online Objection Bible (abridged)" free for download

At the City and Regional Magazine Association's annual meeting I released the first edition of "The  Online Objection Bible(abridged)." This 23 page document shares specific strategies that integrated media salespeople can use to over come the following objections:

"All our online $ goes to search”
“Not enough clicks”
“Print is dead”
“We don’t buy integrated packages”

Download it for free:

Download online_objection_bible.doc

 

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

 

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

The Winding Road to Digital Magazine's next phase

Remember your magazine's first website?

For most publications it was a simple copy and paste job. We copied content from the magazine and pasted it right onto the the new website. The big question of the day was, "Should we hold off posting the web content, as it might hurt readership of the identical print content. Then something unexpected happened that changed everything:

Nothing.

That's right, nothing happened. Because we discovered that no new web content meant no new web visitors, and as result, no new ad dollars. The dialog abruptly shifted to how we could develop fresh content for the magazine's website and how to monetize it.

That was ten years ago. OK, so why are so many publishers having the same discussion, right now, about digital magazines?   

I've heard it all over the magazine industry, "We tried publishing a digital magazine, but nothing happened." How soon we forget...no new content equals incremental new readership and incremental new revenue.

But what if you put new content into digital magazines? What if they were not just a duplication of your magazine but an extension into niche areas unprofitable to service with print? What if they were utilized as a new content platform, not just a means of digital distribution? What if they were created to function as graphical, upscale newsletters in industries or categories where graphical appeal counts?

The trend has already started. The people at "Winding Road" is a digital only car magazine that gets over 180,000 unique readers viewing an average of 22 pages every month. Click on the link below and take a look. It could be your future.   

View Winding Road

Article on the launch of Winding Road

PS: Why no industry association has not taken the time to research the basics of how digital magazines work as an advertising platform is a mystery to me. I'd like to help start that discussion with anyone willing.