Voice Mail, Wherefore Art Though Voice Mail?
Getting ad-sales appointments for in-person or virtual meetings on the phone and/or online is the key first step. Without voice mail we’ll need new tactics.
Sales Tips
How to “Show Up” to Make More Advertising Sales
Woody Allen said 80% of success is showing up. When it comes to successful media selling that is a good place to start. And it’s harder than ever to “show up.” Prospects don’t call back, or say they don’t need to see you. Client-side contacts say to see the agency who you already know hasn’t called back for weeks. How can you “show up” in our fiercely competitive world of media sales?
The Most Difficult Objection: “I don’t need to see you.”
All this is a preamble to this simple point: You better have a really good message when you ask for an appointment. If it works, you’ll win more appointments and ultimately win more business. If your message is so-so, you and your property will stay in the mental “circular file.”
How to Sell Advertising at Trade Shows
Attending and utilizing tradeshows for sales is a key skill for almost every kind of advertising sales person. If you sell national trade advertising, the trade shows in your industry are a key source of content and of leads, as well as a place to meet your prospects. If you sell local TV or radio or newspaper advertising attending the local “home-show” will be a source of leads and a great place to chat up potential customers.
Have an Agenda – Make More and Bigger Ad Sales
Preparing and proposing an agenda at the beginning of the ad-sales conversation has many positive uses. Proposing an agenda for your meeting or conversation can be done on the phone or in person, and works in informal situations as well as in formal presentations.
Connect, Educate, Collaborate, Close
Your customers have little time for you because they are under so much pressure to be productive. Only if you add value to their day, every time you meet, will you win time with them to build the relationship that gives you a leg up in the competition.
Open the Mind w keyThat is why I loved seeing new research on now b2b buyers separate winners from losers. The research directly supports the ambro.com Strategic Sales Tactics Training for advertising sales that we teach in customized form for media companies and publically through the Masters of Media Selling seminars with MediaPost.
A Sales Call Is Like a Blind Date: Are You Talking Too Much?
What do dates and sales calls have in common? You probably need to win another meeting or date to accomplish your goal. You are, in fact, building a relationship. You know good and well that talking about yourself too much on a date is a way to make sure it’s […]
Cold-Calling is an Investment: Do it Right
Your cold-calling is adding extra targeted, customized, frequency to the rest of your ad-sales-marketing plan that helps you win new business. Your calls are targeted to the prospects with the greatest need or potential for business volume. Think of your cold-calling plan as a personal brand-building process.
Have a Hypothesis, Be Humble, Ask Questions like Columbo
The solution to overcoming fear of being wrong, is avoiding the need to be right. Journalists do this all the time by asking first the obvious, then the un-obvious question. Columbo, my favorite disheveled TV detective, would pose two conflicting sets of facts and ask questions trying to resolve them.
Discuss the Path to Purchase When You Sell Advertising
Smart advertising sales managers know that they can’t skip selling to the ad agencies and media buying services, but they must never forget where the power is; at the client. And getting client appointments is harder and more valuable than ever.
What gets the attention of clients? Certainly it’s not your circulation or your demographics. That is what they pay agencies to put in to spreadsheets. In order to be successful working at the highest level of advertising media decision making, at the client, you need to be adding value by contributing to their understanding of how customers make purchase decisions to buy their products. If you bring value to keeping up with the changing habits of buyers you will always be welcome in the executive suites of your advertising media customers.
It is the Path to Purchase that is intriguing to customers. It is not simple, rather it is nuanced. It is not static, but rather is changing with the changing media consumption patterns of consumers and business buyers.
