Author Archives: ensonsales

IDEAS = DOLLAR$

 
How do you get advertisers to invest more money with you or renew with a rate increase, and how do you get that hard-to-sell prospect to consider adding your station? 
 
It’s really simple – just come up with an IDEA and present it! Every day, business owners and managers drive to and from work thinking, “How can I grow my business?” 
 
They’re looking for IDEAS; small ideas, medium ideas, and BIG IDEAS. Ideas that make sense for their business. The bigger and better the idea, the more they will invest.
 
If we are asking for more dollars (increased frequency) or asking for a rate increase (just because it’s renewal time), your chances for pushback and resistance are greatly increased. However, with a well-thought-out “IDEA”, you’ll increase your chances tenfold.
 
Your IDEAS can be a campaign ad strategy, a musical image, an audio signature, a promotion or event promoting a specific product or area of their business, or a new positioning statement or slogan. It can be anything that benefits THEM, and not you or your radio station. Your summer car giveaway might be your station’s biggest promotion of the year, but it must be presented from the advertisers’ perspective to increase your chances of selling them.
 
We suggest you view every proposal before it goes out the door to ensure it has a customer-focused “IDEA”. Selling “radio” can be challenging; selling ideas is easier, and selling BIG IDEAS… easier yet! After all, all business owners want are IDEAS on “How to GROW their business”.
 
IDEAS = DOLLAR$
 
Stop selling radio and start selling ideas!
 
If you’re looking to GROW your business in 2022 and beyond, click here to arrange an online overview. We can help grow your revenue, and help train and brand your stations and your account executives as professional marketing consultants.
 
There’s never any pressure. If you decide it’s not for you, we’ll just call it a good conversation. I’ll bet we’ll both learn something and will have made a new friend!

The Name is the Game!

Do you have an advertiser who is infatuated with their digital “expert” or agency?
        
Here is a question you can suggest they ask their digital consultant or advisor, “What is the most common word internet searchers use to find your business?”
        
If they’re honest, the answer won’t be a keyword or other SEO tactic. They’ll have to admit that the most common word used for consumers to find them through search is their name or their business name.             
                 
Digital experts, at least honest digital experts, will tell you that 70% of people doing an online search will click on a name they are familiar with. Only 7% will click on the biggest or first ad they see, and 23% will click on both.
 
Your business name IS the most powerful tool they have when it comes to SEO!
        
You can bet that until they were asked, they did not tell your advertisers about the role of branding & creating pre-search name awareness in driving more online traffic.
        
There is no substitute for name recognition when consumers search for a business online. And there is no disputing the intrusive power of broadcast advertising in creating top-of-mind awareness and name recognition.
 
Digital and Social are big, no question about it, but they cannot create TOMA (Top-of-Mind Awareness) like intrusive broadcast media.
        
That’s not to say there is no value to some of the online tactics implemented to capture more leads. But if the advertiser’s marketing has been effective, nothing will trump name recognition and nothing builds name recognition like RADIO!
        
Our local TOMA (Top-of-Mind Awareness) Surveys consistently validate the power of broadcast advertising to create top-of-mind awareness and drive more online traffic, leads, and sales.  
        
Click here to arrange an online meeting to discuss how conducting a TOMA study in your market will increase your local revenues.

A Little Dose of Good!

 
A friend of mine, whose opinion I value very much, sent this video to me the other day and I thought it was worth sharing.
 
In a world that seems divided, it’s a message like this that affirms there is a LOT MORE good than there is bad.
 
The video is short but powerful! I hope it inspires you and everyone that watches it to look for and see the good in people and in our world, more so than the bad.
 
 
Thanks for sending this to me Jim!
 
Keep Smiling!

What’s the Purpose of THIS Call?

As media reps, we make sales calls for a variety of different reasons. Depending on the stage of your relationship with a client, each call has a different purpose.
 
At the beginning of the sales process, we make cold calls to introduce ourselves. Beyond cold calls, we make calls to conduct a Q&A or CNA. We make presentation calls, follow-up calls, and calls simply to keep in touch.  Once the person becomes a client, we make service calls. The types of sales calls and reasons for calls go on and on.
 
Prior to every call we make, whether in-person, via the phone, email, or text, we should consciously ask ourselves this question, “What do I want to accomplish with this call?”. Doing so will put you in the “right frame of mind” so that you know exactly what it is you want to accomplish.
 
Regardless of the level of importance, every call should have a clear objective. For some calls, it may simply be to set up the next meeting or get them to say “yes” to considering radio or whatever else you might be offering. Other objectives might be to get them to agree to consider a promotion, add another station, increase their frequency, approve a script, and start the schedule. The reasons are endless, but your objective for each call should be to get you to your next step. 
 
It seems obvious, after all, you know why you’re going on the call, but if you consciously (physically and mentally) ask yourself the question before EVERY call, “What do I want to accomplish with this call?”, I can assure you that you’ll have a better understanding of what you want to achieve and how to go about it. 
 
By doing so, every call from this day forward will be more productive.

Education – A GREAT Investment

Without sounding too critical, let me make a bold statement. “Most business owners don’t know diddly about advertising”. The only things they know are what they have learned from trial and error. But the fact of the matter is that most have had very little education about HOW and WHY advertising works!
 
Understanding how and why advertising works isn’t a trait anyone is born with. It’s something that must be learned, and most business owners either don’t have the time to educate themselves or the desire.
 
This is where good media reps come in. Educate them and watch your sales grow!
 
Here’s the real test. Do you or your sales team know enough about HOW and WHY advertising works to teach your prospects and clients? 
 
If we are simply talking to clients about OUR stations, OUR ratings, and why advertising on OUR stations is a good deal for them, they may buy, but chances are they will never buy as much as they can or should.
 
The more you educate your clients, the more they will buy from you.
 
Teach them…
  1.  What Strategy is and why it’s important
  2.  How to Create a Brand and WHY it’s important
  3.  How people consume media
  4. The difference between good ads and bad ads
  5. About frequency and consistency
  6. About the strength and weakness of all medias
  7. About emotion and logic and the role they play in purchasing
  8. About the buying cycle and Marketing Funnel
  9. About the Marketing Pyramid
  10. The difference between direct response and branding ads
  11. The Lifetime Customer Value formula
Most business owners don’t like advertising because they don’t understand HOW and WHY advertising works or what advertising can do for their business. It’s up to us as media professionals to teach them.
 
Education takes time and money. That’s why most people sidestep it and just take what they can get. If you have the courage to invest in your business, invest in educating your media reps and your clients. 
 
Education is ALWAYS a good investment!
 
If you are considering a training session or program for your sales teams, give us a call at (605) 310-2062. We would honor the opportunity to visit with you about how we can help educate your team!
 
“It’s a consensus! You hit a ‘home run’! “I would recommend ENS Media to anyone out there trying to build a solid sales staff, rejuvenate an existing sales staff, or redesign and rebrand your marketing image. Rick Fink is a solid, energetic, and extremely creative trainer/motivator. I’ve worked with numerous sales consultants over many years in my career and I can tell you that you won’t go wrong calling ENS Media. They’re really good!”
-Jeffrey Parke, General Manager, KOLA-FM/KCAL-FM, Redlands, CA
 
“Rick is one of the few people I trust with our sales staff when I leave the room. He is an industry veteran that loves it and gets it. I would heartily endorse and recommend Rick for your next program or conference. He will bring his competitive winning attitude to your event with the enthusiasm that will make your attendees want to jump to their feet and begin immediately. I’ve been doing this for 37 years and I recommend Rick highly and without any hesitations. He is one of a few in that category.”
 -Dave Beck, GM/GSM, MBC Grand Broadcasting Inc., Grand Junction CO