Perhaps what the publishing industry hasn’t understood is that we were in a print bubble in the late 1990’s and early years of this century. We believed, for some reason that the market needed dozens of home magazines. We believed that the world needed hundreds of tech magazines and more than a dozen national parenting and baby care magazines. In many, if not most, business-to-business sectors there have been 3 or 4 or even five entries.
Now, there is more evidence of those values that print delivers; values that readers and advertisers are, and will continue to be willing to pay for. “Study after study is showing what print can deliver to advertisers and to readers at the same time. The return on the investment is great for both customers.”
Print has not lost the values that make it important to loyal readers in any sector. Print is far more trusted than online, readers love the permanence of print and the experience of browsing through the pages of a favorite magazine discovering new ideas and products and services through advertising that they would never have searched for in a digital world.
Too many sales trainers take the “be like me” approach to teaching advertising sales. But there are successful advertising sales people of every size and shape, and of every personality. Successful advertising sales people, the ones who sell more then their competitors or more then their colleagues, make the extra sales because they do one or more of the 5 Secrets of Advertising Sales Masters
Today, advertisers want and need a complete solution. And advertising sales people need ad sales training on how to sell hybrid advertising packages where the value is greater than the sum of the parts. Like a hybrid car with two engines that work separately and together to provide higher mileage, a hybrid ad sales proposal provides the advertiser with coordinated media elements that may include premium display to build interest and brand trust and programmatic impressions to reach that same customer as they move through the purchase decision process.
In our capitalist world, prices of inventory are simply the result of the mysterious workings of supply and demand. The massive growth of the supply of inventory isn’t within the control of publishers. But they can and should develop a genuine plan to drive up demand for their inventory. How do you drive demand?
You don’t have to be a television company to synchronize a campaign with a TV media-buy. Will your sales team know how to propose how to tie-in ads on the tablet-delivered site tie in with the TV ads on the screen across the room? If not you’ll be missing an opportunity.
Recent increases in print sales for Men’s magazines show why selling print and digital through the same “hybrid” sales force can be an advantage for print publishers. We have observed that when a print campaign is won, the timing on that will be well before the digital campaign is decided. Long-ago we wrote this ad-sales tip on how to leverage that print win into digital revenue.
If you view advertising sales as a purely transactional business, you won’t be building competitive advantage. When you invest in the three practices above your competitive advantage will build – one customer and one individual relationship at a time. Then, over time, your sales team will notice that they are more likely to get calls and emails returned and you win the close calls on business that might have gone to your competitor. You’ll win more renewal-business, meaning your new business wins can build the business rather than put you on a treadmill of win-lose-win-lose.
When I read the story in the Harvard Business Review about the need to approach selling differently when selling to women, I was very curious. Is this an issue I need to understand better? Do I need to learn about nuances of selling to women versus men to teach advertising sales training at the highest level?
