Building Trust

          You may have seen this sales tip last week from John Potter, VP Training for the Radio Advertising Bureau.
          John said, “I used an insurance man for years. He took me to breakfast for a review of my insurance needs every six months. At the conclusion of reviews, more often than not, he said he thought my insurance matched my needs and he would call me again in six months. I liked him. I believed him. I trusted him.
          Now I have a new insurance man. He calls me often. But every time he tries to sell me something. I don’t like him. I don’t think he has my best interests at heart.

Contact your clients often. Do not try to sell them something every call. Take them marketing information, ideas beyond advertising, information about their competitors. They’ll like you. They’ll believe you. They’ll trust you.”

This is exactly what our SoundADvice does for busy account executives. It puts marketing information, ideas beyond advertising, and useful business tips in front of them, along with your photo and call letters every week.

Your customers and prospects will appreciate your SoundADvice. They’ll learn that you are not just a ‘spot broker’, but you are a marketing expert, and they’ll learn to trust you.

Your investment for SoundADvice is less than you spend on your morning cup of coffee each day, and we have a special offer right now which includes our powerful, “How to Sell in the New Media Economy” workshop.

Interested? Reply here and I’ll follow up with a free online demo.

Advertising Works

            The most successful stations I work with are visible everywhere in their communities, in pursuit of audience.
            But I’m convinced their high visibility does even more for their revenues than it does for their ratings!
            Prospects who don’t listen to your station can get the impression that everyone else in town does listen to you when your vehicles, banners, sponsorships and staff are seen at every community event they attend.
            With all of your competitors claiming to be “number one”, most business decision-makers don’t believe ratings.   They have learned that figures don’t lie, but liars sure can figure.
            On the other hand, they do believe their own eyes and have confidence in your popularity when they perceive they see you everywhere.
            Retailers claim the key to success is location, location, location. Are your station vehicles tucked away overnight in an employee’s driveway or hidden behind your station, or do you have a plan to keep them out, moving and visible?
            Do your personalities pull a shift then hide in their cocoons the rest of the day, or are they out and about, clearly identifying themselves as your stars with their attire and vehicles?
            By the way, radio advertising works too! The easiest person to sell is someone who listens to your station….you don’t have to convince them someone listens, they know first hand. Do you run creative, relevant, thought-provoking commercials to attract new advertisers?
            Our business is no different than our clients’ businesses. Advertising is the first link in a marketing program. But advertising only ‘attracts’audience and sponsors. It’s what comes over your speakers and what we do to create value for our advertisers AFTER the sale that will determine your long-term success.
P.S. Do your reps know how to create the value perception for your advertisers? Our Creating the Radio ROI can dramatically improve your customer satisfaction, key account order size, and renewal rates.
P.P.S. Our weekly radio e-marketing, called SoundADvice, can be the most cost-effective advertising you can buy. Email Wayne to arrange a free, no obligation demo.

Dunkin Donuts of Accountablility

The quest for measuring advertising’s ROI (Return on Investment) has been going on ever since the late 1800’s when department store magnate, John Wanamaker was quoted as saying, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

Newspapers have published coupons in their ads, yellow pages have issued ‘traceable’ phone numbers to advertisers, and some misguided radio stations have even aired ads which said, “say you heard it on the radio”, to prove their results.

In the late 1990’s it was the dotcom kids in silicon valley who made millions capitalizing on marketers’ thirst for measurable advertising results, promising measurable ‘click-throughs’ and responses.

But online marketing expert, Ari Rosenberg, wisely says that online media taking credit for the actions of consumers is “like taking credit for the sale of coffee because you work at the Dunkin’ Donuts cash register.”

Human action is preceded by a complex chain of influences that takes place over time, long before action is actually taken. Before any action or purchase, our minds travel from unawareness of a product to awareness and from awareness to interest, from interest to liking, from liking to preference and on to actually taking action.

The dangerous and underestimated irony in this process is that the closer we get to measurable action or response, the less opportunity marketers have to influence or change that action. Once the consumer has clicked on the Ford truck website or has their checkbook out to buy the Ford truck, they are less easily persuaded that the Chevy might be a better truck.

In radio, we are at the important leading edge of the thoughtchain, reaching unaware consumers and influencing them long before they are at the preference or action end of the decision-making scale.

Our problem is, consumers don’t really know why they do the things they do, so the last point of contact receives credit for the purchase decision, like giving credit to the girl at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter for the coffee sale.

Online media reps can only sell the action end of the chain. In radio, we can be at the influential beginning of the chain, creating the desire for the donut with our advertising, and the measurable action with the donut coupon on our website…. we are online marketing’s important missing link!

Old Reliable Sounds Pretty Good

          Jon Gibs, Vice President, Media and Agency Insights at Nielsen Online, notes, "We have seen major growth in Facebook and a subsequent decline in MySpace. Twitter may be changing the outlook for the entire space. Regardless of how fast a site is growing, it can quickly fall out of favor with consumers who seem willing to pick up their networks and move them to another platform at a moment’s notice."
          Radio, on the other hand, has remained a constant media, successfully facing challenges from new technology over the decades including; TV, cassettes, Walkmans, MP3’s, satellite, iPods and more.
          Our biggest and oldest competitor, newspapers, cannot say the same. Circulation has been sliding for years and I’m embarrassed that we, the immediate electronic media, let them get away with calling their day-old content ‘news’ for as long as we did.

It’s increasingly difficult for marketers to plan their marketing in the face of rapidly changing technology. In very short order, consumers have given up their Palm Pilots for Blackberries, Yahoo has lost ground to Google, and now on the social media front, Facebook is rapidly replacing the recently popular MySpace.

Yellow directories that once took more ad dollars out of our markets than all radio stations combined, are quickly being replaced by a host of online directories.

If we market ourselves properly, and don’t cut our expenses to the point that we don’t continue to present relevant content to local audiences, old, steady and reliable radio will be the comfortable local media choice in the face of confusing and rapidly changing alternatives.

At the risk of sounding old fashioned, I only fear that our search for alternative new media to add to our value bundles might leave the impression that radio audiences are going the way of MySpace and newspaper readers.

Radio has always tried to add to their value bundle. Most stations, for example, sold coupons as part of their bundle during the hay-days of couponing, and adding onlineproducts will add value to our core properties today.

Any 20 year old techie can start a new media company, webmall or online directory with almost no overheard.

Our biggest advantages in competing with these daily upstarts are;

The relationships we have with our advertisers
The influence we have with our audiences
The current cash flow from our traditional media products

Let’s not lose sight of, or give up on, our core business and competitive advantages. When advertisers find it difficult to keep up with ever-evolving new platforms, old reliable radio can sound like a safe haven.

The Economy Excuse

© by Wayne Ens

Warning; This week’s ENS on Sales may not be suitable for all audiences and may offend those who cannot be clearly objective about their sales efforts. This message is not intended to offend anyone, but to offer solutions based upon the successes I see everywhere. It is intended to reach those who will not accept excuses for failure.

As I visit stations across the continent, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that lack-luster sales performance is more a result of lack–luster sales efforts than a faltering economy.

In spite of what you might read or hear, local-direct sales are up over last year at many stations!!

But I see sales managers and sales people in less successful stations focusing on what used to be, rather than what could be; trying to win back accounts they had in the old economy instead of being innovative and uncovering the opportunities in the new economy.

I’ve seen countless cases of sales people who were literally winning by default with fat lists and luck in the boom economy, who now use the economy as a convenient excuse for their failures rather than pulling up their socks and selling.

I see sales people being measured and measuring themselves on histories rather than on futures. This month’s sales report only reflects historical efforts dating back 90 days ago or longer.

The successful teams are measuring current effort and activity over history.

This month’s activity reports will predict where your sales will be 90 days from now. It’s time to start measuring these activities rather than billings history;

1.) Innovation! What have you really done that is different in the new economy?

2.) Effort. Are you making more calls and working much longer hours than you did in ‘the good old days’ or are you insane; doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

3.) Planning. Hope is not a plan. Do you have a strategic selling plan to win more business from every prospect in the new economy, or are you hoping something will change and the phone will ring?

4.) Learning. Are you using your current situation to learn what works, and what doesn’t, in the new economy, and sharpening your skills and knowledge?

5.) Confidence. Do you believe you have the knowledge and the solutions to help your clients increase sales? Or do you walk into every meeting thinking you’re concealing your self-doubt?

6.) The Big Idea. Are you presenting big ideas to your clients who need what you sell, increased sales, more than ever? Is there a ‘wow’ in every presentation you make that makes your solution to help increase sales stand out from your competitors?

I started ENS Media Inc. more than a decade ago, because I thought a recession was just around the corner. I knew from four prior recessions how to win when times are tough and planned to build my business helping stations and advertisers win in a tough economy.

I misjudged how long it would take for a cyclical decline to arrive, but it’s now here, and I’m having fun!

Picking up orders was never as challenging or rewarding for me as helping stations and advertisers grow in the face of adversity.

Like Vince Lombardi said,“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I wish I could see more tough sales people and fewerexcuses during my market visits across the continent!

P.S. If you want to have fun and be successful in the new economy, start by implementing and monitoring the six activities I’ve outlined here. Like it says in my book, “Isn’t it funny, how the harder we work, the ‘luckier’ we get!”