Monthly Archives: February 2013

Knowing What Counts

Knowing What Counts

So you had a great month! Congratulations! Enjoy the fruits of your labours and the accolades. But never lose sight of how you got there. The fruit you are harvesting today is really the result of seeds you planted months ago.

It’s taken months, if not years, for you to build the skills, expertise, reputation and relationships you have in your market. The combination of continuous learning, multiple valid business contacts, and tools like our SoundADvice have been the seeds that grew your success.

It’s a common mistake for sales people, and for advertisers, to measure results based upon the fruit they collect this week or this month. But marketing and selling are a process, not an event.

New seeds grow new trees which eventually grow new fruit. The best marketers measure the seeds they plant, and when they do collect the fruit, they trace the origin of that fruit to those seeds.

Your commission or bonus structure is probably focused on your harvest. You need to find ways to motivate and reward yourself for planting the seeds that are responsible for your harvest.

At the end of each day, counting the seeds you planted rather than the fruits you’ve harvested, is the only way to ensure continuous bountiful harvests in your future.

What seeds are you planting this week?

My Website Sucks!

My Website Sucks!

My website sucks, my Facebook and LinkedIn pages are dated and an embarrassment and my attempts at mobile marketing are non-existent.

We are marketing experts and we certainly recognize the value of websites, social media, videos and mobile media. So why don’t we practice what we preach?

We’ve been trying to upgrade our web site since June, 2012. Alysia Taylor, our Integrated Media Specialist, has been working on a social media strategy for us since late last summer. We still have no new web site or productive social media strategy.

Why am I exposing our marketing weaknesses?

Because ENS Media Inc. is a small business, I can certainly empathise with the challenges of other small businesses. We’re so busy just doing a kick-ass job for our clients that our own marketing goes to the bottom of the pile every day.

And I’m sure most of your clients and prospects are in the same boat. Just running their businesses and serving their customers is a full time job. And keeping up with the ever-increasing and fragmented media choices is downright bewildering.

This exploding new media syndrome creates a huge opportunity for broadcast marketing professionals….creative marketing experts who know how to help increase their advertisers’ sales.

Your biggest competitive advantage isn’t your media, your format, your signal or your ratings. It’s your expertise and turn-key solutions. All a local business needs to do to increase their sales through you is say, "yes".

You will conduct the needs analysis, create the strategy, write and produce the campaigns, schedule the ads and increase your clients’ sales. All they have to do is run their business, deliver the advertised promises and make more money. You’re a God-send!

Never under-estimate the value you deliver beyond the "spots" you sell. Turn-key one-stop marketing solutions for harried business owners are worth their weight in gold!

 

Don’t Wait Until it’s too Late

Don’t Wait Until it’s too Late

A station manager called our office last week requesting a hurry-up presentation of our Winning in the New Media Economy advertiser seminar.

One of their largest local advertisers had just cut their radio and TV in favour of printed flyers. Ouch! The horse was already out of the barn. Marketing experts know that the best time to reach and influence people is before they’ve made a decision, not after.

Our Winning in the New Media Economy seminar has persuaded hundreds of local advertisers that it’s the Electronic Age, an age when the only media advertisers need are a strategic mix of broadcast to inspire and internet to inform.

Spending hard-earned cash on forest lots, lumber jacks, truck drivers, pulp and paper mills, printing press operators and delivery people makes no sense in this new media landscape of faster less expensive electronic alternatives.

Our seminar has done more than convert hundreds of local advertisers from print to a broadcast/online combo. I’ve actually had existing radio and TV advertisers approach me after the seminar telling me that prior to the seminar they were thinking about cutting their broadcast in favour of print……to me saving an existing client is as good as selling a new one.

In three such cases they told me they were going to increase their broadcast buys instead of cutting as a result of what they learned at our seminar. (There were probably more saves than three, but three actually thanked us and told us.)

Don’t let a surprise cancellation happen to you! We still have some dates left in 2013 to schedule your Winning in the New Media Economy market survey and advertiser seminar to convert current print advertisers and to save current broadcast advertisers.

Email [email protected] to learn how you can educate clients about the new electronic media mix before it’s too late.

What Winning Account Executives Know

What Winning Account Executives Know

The top-producing account executives we work with always know the answers to these ten questions about every client:

  1. Who is the real decision maker? Not to be confused with the decision-allocator. In the case of a car dealership for example, the sales manager might decide which stations or what media they choose, but only the real decision maker, the dealer principal, can increase the budget. Top producers develop valid business reasons to connect with the ultimate decision maker. Organizational changes might displace the decision allocator, but the real decision maker will always be able to invest with you. Ad agencies are only decision allocators.
  2. When is the planning cycle? Many know the buying cycle, or fiscal year end, but it’s more critical to know the planning cycle. The top account executives will be a sustaining resource prior to and during the planning process. If the plan is struck to the exclusion of radio, you have an uphill battle. But if the plan includes radio, you only have to fight for your share.
  3. Who are the key influencers? With tough competition and pressures on profit margins, every decision is critical and seldom made unilaterally. The best owners and managers minimize their risk by consulting their staff, trusted advisors, and perhaps even industry gurus before making major decisions. Who are they and what can you do to win them over?
  4. What is the value you deliver? What is it the advertiser really wants from you, and what do they believe it’s worth? Consulting? Creative? Reach? Traffic? Sales? It might be a combination of benefits. The top account executives know how much they will add to the bottom line and what that is worth to the client.
  5. What is the budget? Budgets can always be increased with the right understanding of client needs and your value proposition. The best account executives know what the current budget is, and what share they capture.
  6. How will they measure? Web hits? Gross sales? New faces? Mentions? Traffic? Sales? You need to know up front how you will be measured, and how to measure-up.
  7. Why would the advertiser cancel? What would be the most likely reason they would cancel or not renew? And what steps can we take to prevent that from happening?
  8. What’s the next step? What is the next good thing or valid business reason we are preparing for our next call? Pre-call customer-focused planning is the hallmark of the best reps.
  9. What is the advertiser’s competitive advantage? Why should your audience abandon their current provider/supplier in favour of this client, and how can you validate that competitive advantage in your campaigns?
  10. Where does my client want his business to be five years from now? Rookie account executives only focus on short-term solutions-selling. The top reps know their clients’ long term dreams and visions and how to fit into those plans.