Ad Sales Blog

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:

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.

Who says magazines are not interactive media?

Not my 14 year old, Jenni, who (with profound apologies to GL magazine) found a way to interact with that publication in a way that is...well, meaningful for a 14 year old.

Magazines, and most print media, are more personal because you can hold them in your hands. From here interactivity can take on many forms; physical coupons, tear outs, inserts, pop ups, contest entry forms, and blow ins. There is a physical interactivity that comes from the act flipping pages. There is a lot of interactivity that comes from the more personal physical connection that only print can make...even for a 14 year old!   

Why does your site exist?

Why does your site exist?

On a sales call, how do you answer this question? Many media reps jump into a canned pitch about the power of their print originated brand franchise and how their website extends the franchise online.

Baloney.

Media buyers, are driven by "What's in if it for me," and the best print brand does not guarantee online results.

The online word is results and measurement driven. You have to explain the functional benefit behind your online media first. Then go one to explain how this function can generate measurable results. Start with an explanation of what your website or online media DOES for it's visitors.

A great post on today's "Online Metrics Insider" lays out a guide for categorizing the functional benefit of a website for people who measure web performance. They need this as much as we do. If you can't functionally define a web visitor benefit you cannot evaluate a web sites result, nor can you explain the advertising benefit of that site to a media buyer.

From the post:

Your Web site exists for a purpose, perhaps multiple purposes, such as:

Providing information or data. Many sites entice people to visit for access to valuable, differentiated information or data. Traffic is then monetized primarily through site advertising. Many internal and external analytics packages will tell you where visitors come from and what they do on site, which, when combined with demographic information, can be used to qualify a specific audience to an advertiser.

Generating leads. A content asset is placed on a site and gated using a form. People fill out the form and download the asset. The information captured in the form is stored and used by the company that generated the leads or profitably sold to another company.

Selling products. The typical e-commerce model involves acquiring customers via some method or offer, providing a product catalog or landing page, and creating a strong call to action and funnel that persuades people to purchase a product.

Connecting people. The explosion of social networking sites where people connect to other people, interact with each other, and use widgets, apps, and data services, is a modern phenomenon in which many of us participate.

Read the entire post on the Media Post's "Online Metic Insider"

Media integration through contests

One of the best ways to monetize your online media is to integrate it with your print to hold a contest. The formula works because contests invite "reader response" which advertisers see as "customer response."

Both print and web work extremely well as contest announcement vehicles but after that their different strengths separate. Contest entry processing is handled on the web--the print contest entry forms of old are fading away. But print remains the preferred announcement vehicle for winners. Calling all egomaniacs...when you win don't you want something you can hold in your hands and show your friends at a party or frame and put on your wall?. Tough to do if the winners are just posted on a website.

Integrated media is also a great way to involve advertisers. Typically to tap for the prizes. But in so doing something creating value that you can you can charge for, Heres how; people who enter a contest to win a prize are interested in owning that prize. Everyone registers but not everyone wins. After you give away the prize what you have left is  database of people who still want the prize/product but don't own it. A dream database for any advertiser.

ON your next call consider if a contest might involve some of the advertisers you call on.

There are many ways to structure advertiser involvement into contests. Media Bistro has a great pile of them on them website, a link is below:

   See some creative media contests from Media Bistro's web site

 

Folio Column: Managing the "Interactive Shift"

Usually I post a link to my Folio columns their website but a link has not been posted yet.

I think of this as my most important "sales transition" column as it maps the underlying issue that is driving the whole transition. It's not about new technology. It's not about adding the latest cool on line product to your sales offerings. It's not even about keeping up with the future.

It is about the fundamental shift in what marketing is, as we move from marketing that presents messages to a targeted audience, to marketing that engages individuals in interactive experiences.

If you develop your media products, promote your media, and manage your sales staff with this fundamental shift in mind you will be successful in the future.

Digital media buyers want you to remember what business you are in

As media moves from being intangible to measured the details become more important, and lunch--the core tool of intangible sales-- less so. Along these lines, Ed Kelly executive vice president, digital media at KSL Media, offered sobering advice in a post last week on "Online Publishing Insider:"

"We're not in the lunch business. We're in the advertising business. The publishers that heed this charge will outrun their competitors every time, even if their sites aren't quite as robust."

Kelly offers these guidelines for reps wanting to make the most of the new sales environment:

Respond to the full RFP. This sounds a lot easier than many major publishers evidently find it. Publishers can't pick and choose which questions to answer; it's an all or nothing proposition. If you're not going to address an issue, you have to tell the agency why.

Take it to the top. Senior management involvement is always appreciated. RGM chief Kamran Razavi managed JustLuxe's response personally, and at one point he had us collaborating directly with the JustLuxe publisher.

Prove the numbers. RGM provided Media Metrix runs, site surveys and anecdotal information without being prompted. That might seem ordinary, but it's not. Far too many publishers either don't have audited audience breakouts or refuse to divulge them.

Weave a program, not a buy. RGM bested the competition in several areas: the number of travel packages, the robust content and functionality of the program micro site, the variety of high-impact ad units promoting the program, and pricing that was aggressive in light of the demonstrated value.

Make pricing simple. The more complex the program, the more important it is to have clear pricing guidelines for CPM-based, fixed-fee and value-add program elements. RGM actually provided rates and pricing for three scenarios, with clear rules on what was included in each. Just as important: All of the scenarios synced perfectly.

Sound advice. 

Read Kelly's entire post on Online Publishing Insider