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Tag Archives: Strategy
What’s Your BIG IDEA?
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? Come up with and present a BIG IDEA!
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 “BIG IDEA” you’ll increase your chances tenfold.
Your BIG IDEAS can be a campaign ad strategy, a musical image, an audio signature, a promotion, a new positioning statement or slogan. It can be anything that benefits THEM, and not you or your radio station. Your summer car giveaway may be your station’s biggest promotion of the year, but it must be presented from the advertiser’s 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”.
If you are looking to GROW your business in 2018 and beyond, click here to arrange an online overview of how we can help grow your revenue and help train and brand your stations and your account executives as professional marketing consultants.
Your Prospect Said ‘No’…Now What? Part 3 of 3
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In the last two ENS on Sales, we explored why ‘no’ is a necessary step towards ‘yes’ in your selling process, and we discussed the first five of our ten things to do after ‘no’. (If you missed those issues, contact angela@wensangela@wensmediacom to request them). Let’s explore the remainder of those 10 steps. Step 6; is one of the most often underplayed…..say thanks in a big way! Thanks for the appointment, thanks for giving me new insights into your business or your goals and thanks for considering us, etc. Don’t only say thanks verbally, but follow up in writing with a personal note. Also thank any key influencers, coaches or associates who referred you, and keep them in the loop. Step 7: After no, carefully plan your next strategy based upon what the no taught you. Through questioning, you’ve learned why your prospect said no, and conversely, you now know what you have to do to get to yes. Step 8: Initiate a minimum of three valid business contacts before you ask for the order again. A valid business contact is any contact which benefits your prospect. Pushing for a sale on every encounter can be a real turn off, but delivering a minimum of three messages of value before the next ask will help create a pre-sell your next approach. Step 9: After no, get a second opinion. Review the situation with your sales manager, have a productive brainstorming meeting with your creative people or, SoundADvice members are always welcome to contact me 24/7 to discuss the situation and alternative approaches for the next proposal. Step 10: Last but not least, bow out gracefully. When you have exhausted the previous 9 steps, know when to quit, but do it with confidence and style. Don’t just disappear. Let the prospect know that you are convinced your station can produce results for them. Let them know you would like to have another account executive tackle the challenge, and ask them what they look for in a media account executive so that you can better select the team member at your station to serve them. There is no shame in another account executive making a sale where you could not. If your account trade results in a win for the station and a win for the client, you are a winner. There will be clients that others couldn’t sell that you could sell, and visa versa. Remember, if you’re not getting any no’s, you’re not trying hard enough, and if you are getting too many no’s, you aren’t preparing properly. In closing, remember to take responsibility for no, and retrace each step in your process to learn how to get to yes. More often than not, when you question to uncover the real reason for the no, it’s very likely you’ll uncover what it takes to get a yes. |
ENSMedia Inc. 705-484-9993 |
Hooray For Canadian Radio
It appears a new radio marketing bureau is on the horizon, called Radio Connects.
As someone who has always held the efforts of the Radio Marketing Bureau, and its predecessors the Radio Bureau of Canada and the Radio Sales Bureau, dear to my heart, I applaud the efforts of the CAB committee to get this initiative off the ground.
But now I’ll issue a few warnings in the hopes that my industry doesn’t shoot itself in the foot again;
1.) Don’t have unrealistic expectations of what your new marketing body can do for you. Radio Connects is starting from ground zero, with a limited budget and is mandated to promote radio in the midst of a digital frenzy.
2.) Don’t have unrealistic expectations of when you will see results. Even in radio best of times, we often took a back seat to TV, newspaper and digital, so Radio Connect has a huge battle ahead.
3.) Support the new Radio Connects with your time, expertise and funding. You may not agree with every strategy or initiative that evolves from this effort, but let’s not get bogged down with special interests and nay-sayers. Radio is the ONLY Canadian media without an industry marketing association, and that’s not right.
4.) Remember, Executive Director Sarah Garvie and her special advisor Paul Ski are serving a committee of your peers. Please empower them and give them the benefit of the doubt.
We’ve all heard the old joke about a camel being a horse that was designed by a committee. Radio Connect might not be perfect but it will be great!
What Do You Compete On?
Rate? Reach? Frequency? Creative? Format? Personality? Demographics?
The most profitable, sustainable, and fun area to compete in is to compete on trust.
The three most critical strategies to creating trust are;
1.) Become known for what you know. Your local prospects and clients today are looking for someone who has the knowledge to help them sort through the various competing media claims, new and traditional.
2.) Always under promise and over deliver. Just doing what you say you’re going to do, is taken for granted. The winners over-perform on their promises.
3.) Care about your advertiser’s success. Your prospects know whether you’re calling on them to make your budget, or to help them make their budget.