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.

Focusing on Problems vs Solutions

When NASA began launching astronauts into space, they discovered pens wouldn’t work in zero gravity. The ink would not flow to the writing surface.

So they turned to new technology to solve the problem.

They hired technology consultants and invested 12 million dollars over 10 years to develop a pen that worked in zero gravity. The new technology pen worked upside down, underwater, at any temperature and on any writing surface.

The Russians simply used a pencil to write in outer space.

Sometimes when advertising and sales efforts are not producing the results advertisers want, they search for shiny new technologies and consultants to solve the problem. Valuable time and money can be invested on software, Search Engine Optimization and social media consultants, when the problem could have been solved using tried and proven radio.

ENS Media is building an arsenal of radio campaign success stories for radio account executives to use to prove the radio pencil still works, and advertisers need not re-invent the wheel. If you have an advertiser success story you can share to help sell more radio, please forward it to: [email protected].

If we share your case study on our website, I will send you a signed complimentary copy of my book, 101 ways to Get Luckier (In Advertising Sales)

P.S. Here is a link to a short video that tells the technology/pencil story for you to share with advertisers who are considering abandoning the tried and proven for expensive consultants and time-consuming solutions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ghZV96e8Pw

Message of Value Every Week

You’ve got to see this video from Jeffrey Gitomer, the best selling author of, The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, and more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npFRM7Est1A

Jeffrey replies to an advertising salesperson’s question about “touching base” saying, “Dude, you’re going to lose all of your customers if you fail to reach them with a message of value every week.”

Ironically, more than ten years ago, I wrote about the fallacy of merely “touching base” in Chapter 76 of my book, 101 Ways to Get Luckier in Advertising Sales……Selling isn’t Baseball; it’s not about “touching base”.

Like me, Jeffrey says you have to talk to every client about them, not you, and deliver a weekly message to help ring their cash registers.

But virtually every well-intentioned account executive who has tried to follow the “weekly-message-of-value” motto, eventually fails in their attempt. Why?

1.) They run out of thought-provoking original messages after about six attempts.

2.) They can’t resist the urge to talk about themselves and their stations, rather than about the client and the client’s cash register. Their hard-sell message becomes junk mail.

3.) Most importantly, they are so busy trying to make this month’s budget that developing their weekly message of value goes to the bottom of the pile, and eventually drops off the face of the earth.

Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system solves all of these problems for you….delivering a message of value from you to your clients and prospects every week. We do all of the work, you receive the credit!

Contact [email protected] to view a free demo of how SoundADvice can work for you.

The Metrics of Selling

According to the National Sales Executive Association, 80% of all new business is won after the fifth contact.

Our own research of SoundADvice member activity reveals similar results; the average size of a first order is four times greater after a prospect has received five to seven SoundADvice contacts.

What are the key take-aways from this research?

1.) Advertisers buy from account executives they trust, and building trust takes time.

2.) Don’t expect an order on a first call, and don’t give up too early.

3.) A call that does not yield an order should not be considered unsuccessful; instead consider it to be an advancement towards success.

4.) Have a strategic plan in place to generate a minimum of 5 to 7 valid business contacts with your prospect as you advance towards that order. A “valid business contact” is any contact which benefits your prospect and enhances your brand as a helpful marketing professional.

One final point: Never think of getting an order as the end of your selling process. It’s actually just the beginning towards the next bigger order if you plan another 5 valid business contacts immediately following that first order.

P.S. Our SoundADvice system creates valid business contacts for you every week.

Contact [email protected] to learn how a SoundADvice membership can increase your local direct sales.

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Blasting Email Blasts