Time Sales?

Radio and TV people often say they are in ‘time sales’.  But do they really realize what kind of ‘time’ is most valuable?

In their book Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman examine the importance of investing your time in customer engagement.  Their study reveals a common experiential reaction from a wide range of unorthodox demographic segments.

Venture capitalists, for example, when surveyed about their investments and relationships with their investment firms, "the researchers expected a hard-headed focus on the ROI of each investment.  And while this mattered, the Brafmans discovered that venture capitalists place more trust in entrepreneurs who bolster the relationship with timely and thorough updates.

Surprisingly, injured patients also are dramatically impacted by the quality and quantity of interaction with their doctors.  “People don’t sue doctors if they believe they were treated fairly.  This belief, in turn, is based on the quantity of time spent and the quality of that interaction."

If you want your station to be like the doctor whose patient defends him—even after an injury-causing mistake—you need to invest time cultivating the relationship BEFORE that relationship is put to the test.

If the only interaction your station has with your clients is when you ask for an order or send an invoice, you are headed for trouble.

TIP The amount of time and interaction you dedicate to each client should be directly proportionate to the revenue potential of that client.  All too often, we spend too much time with clients we are comfortable with, or the ones that are difficult to sell, and we spend too little time cultivating a strong relationship with our highest potential accounts.

Radio’s New Future

Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing, is the best selling marketing series of books in history. His expertise in squeezing the most out of marketing budgets reveals an amazing new truth about advertising. Here is his most recent marketing bulletin.

Prior to the internet, marketers spent huge chunks of their budgets for rising paper costs,  having their messages printed, and more again to deliver those printed messages by carrier or post office.

Smart ‘guerilla marketers’ today, invest their advertising dollars in intrusive emotional media to drive prospects to their information on the web….information which is cheaper on the internet than any hard printed hand delivered message ever was.

Advertisers today can do much more with less, using radio to drive prospects to their online brochures and ads.

P.S. Do your research to learn the household internet accessibility versus daily newspaper delivery in your market and watch those print budgets switch to radio web-driver campaigns!

      Goes Through an Agency?

          I was shocked last week when I asked an account executive for the contact name at one of her clients.  Her reply was, “That goes through an agency now so I no longer have a contact at the client level.”

          Are you kidding me?

          It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee!

The only justification for local reps handling agency accounts is because they do have a relationship with the client and intimate knowledge of the account.      

1.) All media buys are ultimately approved by the client.

2.) The client will fire the agency (they always do).

3.) No agency can sell your station to a client as well as you.

4.) Many ‘agencies’ are merely graphics design houses, web-design companies or TV production houses, selling strategies that give them, not your clients, the most profit.

5.) You can’t make relevant presentations to the agency if you don’t know what the client is thinking.

6.) On occasion, you will have a station promotion which might not fit the agency’s plans but does dovetail with something the client is doing.

        I’m not usually big on rules, but here is one every station should implement;

          All agency accounts are to be handled by our national or regional reps unless the local reps make a valid* business contact with the client directly a minimum of once per quarter.

* A valid business contact is any contact in which you deliver something of value to the client.

Great Beginnings

                It’s widely believed that the first radio commercial was delivered 86 years ago on August 28, 1922.

          At a time when many people didn’t even have a radio and with no ratings, rankings or previous radio advertising successes to build upon, a Mr. Blackwell paid $100.00 to deliver his message on WEAF in New York City.

                    I don’t know how one hundred dollars translates into today’s dollar, but it must have been a fortune!

          So here we are 86 years later using ratings, rankings, poorly trained sales people, our competitors and a long list of other excuses to devalue that bench mark rate!

          Maybe it’s time to regain our dignity and recruit and train professionals who can sell radio advertising for what it’s really worth!   

How to Increase Your Sales

          I subscribe to approximately 40 industry newsletters each week and I was concerned when I read three consecutive letters last week about the ‘trouble’ radio is in.

          One said, “No matter how you look at it, radio is in serious trouble.”

All three claimed, “radio revenues are down.”  Granted, these were all referring to American radio and my Canadian radio friends are faring better.      

           But these disheartening newsletters literally kept me awake one night. The next morning, I called ten of the radio stations that use our SoundADvice, and all ten stations reported their sales are up! 

          From what I’ve observed, these stations are up because their cultures focus on helping their customers achieve their targets rather than obsessing about this month’s station target.

          The stations that focus on creating results for their customers are up!

          SoundADvice is not solely responsible for the increases at these stations.  SoundADvice is, however, is a powerful tool that helps account executives and advertisers understand what they have to do to get results.

          Click here to learn more about SoundADvice.