Ad Sales Blog

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:

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

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

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.

Internet to Overtake Radio in ‘08 & Mags in ‘10

The ineveitable prediction has been made. According to a ZenithOptimedia forecast,

"We predict internet advertising to pass three milestones over the next three years," ZenithOptimedia's forecast said. "We expect it to overtake radio advertising in 2008; to attain a double-digit share of global advertising in 2009; and to overtake magazine advertising in 2010, with 11.5% of total ad spend."

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On a call.

Use this on a call.

A perfect study to show your web laggards. Show them the chart and ask, "Come on guys, do you really think this Web stuff is just going to blow over?

Read the full article on the AdAge website

PDF with the stats on the Ad Age site

"Rounding Up the Online Laggards"

Link to my November column for my best advice on

"Rounding Up the Online Laggards" on the Folio webiste.

A booklet to shock your web laggards

WebTrends has issued a great little book built on content from e-Marketer called, “Engagement Marketing, the Essential Guide to Building Loyalty using Web 2.0 Best Practices.” The guide shows all the new digital ad media from mobile advertising, to Internet video advertising, to podcast advertising etc. Each new ad medium is given a concise evaluation and a revenue projection chart to the year 2011 or so. It is smart, simple, and brief.

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It is a Zagat-like guide to the new ad media that makes it simple to see things are moving ahead on many fronts. For your web laggard client struggling to place his first web banner, showing him this 55 page booklet will be a shock to the system.

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Use it on a sales call

Don’t be an arrogant Internet jerk, be a consultant. Show your client a copy of the booklet and explain what it is. Then move quickly to the page that shows the new medium your client is now considering.

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Ask for their reaction.

Now show him/her the growth curve out to the year 2010 etc.

Finally take a step back and show him the bigger picture by showing trend charts for a few other emerging media.

You are subtly making the case that your client is not just behind the power curve, the whole game is moving on and he’s not in it.

Download a FREE PDF at the WebTrends website (registration required).

A study to move the online laggards along

Online advertising dollar is volume up 26% over last year, which was the year online ad spend surpassed magazines. Yet every media organization I work with reports many accounts that spend nothing  on online media.

Here is a great study that can help.

Most online laggards know that the world is changing around them, but typically had a bad online media buy they don't want repeated.

What is great about this study is that you can invite them to look at web advertising a second time by saying, "You may have been right in the past, but things are different now. Can we take another look?"

Here's what is different:

Starting back in 2003 the Online Line Publishers Association monitored why people use the web. At that time "Communications" (email, messaging etc.) topped the list taking 46% of online users time. Activities relating to "Content" was second with 35%.

But as the study progressed "Content" grew steadily until a year ago it accounted for 39% of users time, almost tying "Communications" which still lead with 39.6%.

But this past year there was a more significant shift, "Content" shot past "Communications" and now leads "Communications" 49.6% to 32%. The chart for last year:

Whoa.

This is actually huge news if you are in the business of selling ad products associated with the "Content" part of the Internet.

There has been a significant shift in the past year. People are simply using the web differently than they were a year ago and content, not communications, is king. Assuming you sell advertising on a content based website, newsletter, webinar, etc. what you sell is more valuable that it was a year ago.

In light this shift, this year, it's time to ask your web laggards to take another look.

Online Publishers Association Press release

All the details (too many for some) on the Online Publishers Association website including charts for a sales call

A "light" version, an explanation of the report posted at Online Media Daily report

Need a new ad business model? Think like Rupert

We will soon know if Rupert Murdock will succeed in buying the Wall Street Journal.

Other media organizations have passed on the deal, among them General Electric, who owns NBC Universal, and Financial Times publisher Pearson (whose Berkley division published my third book Selling 2.0). 

In a statement today NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, with reference to Murdock's $5 billion offer, said his organization passed on the deal because it would not be "fiscally disciplined" to continue. Zucker added, "I am not going to presume to know what's in Rupert's mind in terms of why he's bid what he's bid."

This week's Time magazine cover story gives us that very look into Murdock's mind and it is all about creatively revising the Wall Street Journal's publishing business model:

"What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world? Say 200 of them. And spent some money on establishing the brand but went global — a great, great newspaper with big, iconic names, outstanding writers, reporters, experts. And then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks. How long would it take for the advertising to come? It would be successful, it would work and you'd make ... a little bit of money. Then again, the Journal and the Times make very little money now."

Every publisher can take a lesson from this. Murdock is not looking to buy the Wall Street Journal for what it is, but for what it could be if it's brand were leveraged into new media.

Read the entire Time Inc. article