Blasting Email Blasts

I occasionally receive station presentations in my inbox, and most of them clearly tell me why stations are not selling more.

Of course, their first error is sending me the presentations in the first place. The sender has obviously not refined their e-marketing data base, nor custom tailored the cover message to be relevant to me… I’m not a prospect.

The senders merely send the same “package” to everyone in sight hoping something will stick… in the seventies we called that the “spray and pray” method of selling. (It didn’t work then either!)

I received one such email this week from a station selling local play-by-play broadcasts for a nationally-franchised sports team ….the name has been withheld to protect the guilty.

The cover note suggested three “marketing packages” were attached, but I could find no such marketing package, only three packages of radio spot schedules at three investment levels; $500 a month, $1,200 a month and $3,000 a month.

Here is a little secret about pricing!  Rounded-off even-number pricing results in your prospects asking you to “sharpen your pencil”. No one believes there has been any sophisticated rationale behind rounded-off pricing. If you want your prospects to feel you have sharpened your pencil in your “package” always choose odd numbers, like $565 instead of $500.

Exposing three package levels in an email blast, rather than preparing a custom solution to fit the advertiser’s objectives and budget, results in advertisers gravitating towards the smallest package.

In a mass blast like that, why would you pre-suppose certain budget levels? An advertiser with a budget of $2,000 a month, in this case, would have reverted to the $1,200 a month package, leaving $800 a month on the table because the next package level was beyond their budget.

The three “marketing” packages said nothing about marketing at all, or what was in it for me to sponsor these packages or broadcasts. These packages only revealed X number of spots and sponsor credits for X number of dollars.

Your prospects do not get excited about being presented the same cookie-cutter proposal that they know you presented to their competitors yesterday.

Prepare a creative cover note that captures the advertiser’s attention and opens the door for an appointment for you to make a custom proposal to achieve their marketing objectives….and do not call a spot schedule a “marketing plan”.

Next week, we will discuss how to prepare real marketing packages.

 

If you want to increase your local-direct revenues in 2014, email [email protected], or make an appointment to see him in the Consultant’s Corner at the RAB Radio Show in Orlando in September.

 

Make It Feel Like Christmas

An August 8th report in Chain Store Age suggests that 60% of retailers are “cautiously optimistic” about sales in the upcoming holiday season. In their “2013 Holiday Predictions Survey,” e-tailer Baynote reported 60% of retailers are forecasting revenue growth in excess of 10%. The report also suggests that 30% of retailers will begin their pre-holiday promotions prior to October 1, with more than 40% waiting until early November. While your sales people are boating, golfing and enjoying the summer weather, it can be difficult to have thoughts of sugar plums dancing in their heads. But your clients and prospects are planning their Christmas campaigns NOW. You know, “the early bird gets the worm.” Yet many media account executives will be panicked and running around like frantic last-minute Christmas shoppers.  They’ll be trying to pick up the crumbs left by more professional account executives who captured their prospects’ Christmas budgets while they were still in the planning stages. I can still recall my rookie days when I called on my prospects with our newly-released “Christmas package” only to hear, “Sorry, but we gave our budget to the newspaper just last week.” While it might no longer be “the newspaper”, you can bet there are countless traditional and new media reps who will be pounding the pavement around mid-October in the hopes of capturing lucrative Christmas advertising dollars. If you want your competitors to hear that you have already captured their prospects’ Christmas budgets, you need to have your Christmas sales meeting NOW. You can see our tips on facilitating better Christmas sales meetings in today’s Radio Ink by clicking: http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2687157&spid=30800 A properly planned Christmas Sales Meeting can put your sales team in the mood to be the early bird, to be the first in the door to talk to their prospects about the important Christmas selling season. P.S. Don’t forget the two worst months of your year, January and February, when you present your holiday season proposals. You’ll find it easier to book the post-season sales and events as part of your package NOW. Once the harsh reality of winter sales slumps set in, it’s much more difficult to talk about optimistic sales projections.