A small investment in training and marketing materials can turn your revenue efforts around
It has never been tougher to sell print advertising, but you can make it a lot easier for your staff with a small investment in training and marketing materials.
Does your sales staff have the right information and tools for your market conditions? Are they able to outperform those conditions and help your company grow? These days the test is not limited to the costs and attributes of your paper, it extends to whether some businesses feel the need to advertise at all. Selling ads is not enough, local papers need to demonstrate that print is alive and still the most effective advertising vehicle. Publications need to differentiate themselves and quantify their value. They need to reinforce that they are essential to local commerce.
There’s money out there, you just need to explain and show accounts why they should spend it with you. For the cost of a few pages of advertising I can train your staff and provide them with the research and studies explaining the importance and benefits of advertising, especially during difficult economic periods. It’s not a sales script, its facts from institutions like Harvard University and studies from independent agencies showing the positive impact of advertising on business. The program includes material you can customize for a marketing program. The training is incorporated in four segments explained below:
History is on the side of advertising
Every study of economic strife since 1923 has concluded that advertising is essential to a business’s survival. Most noteworthy is the McGraw-Hill study which looked at 600 companies from 1980-85 and concluded that those which remained aggressive advertisers gained market share and as a group they were 256 percent more profitable that those companies that cut back. Another source, the American Marketing Association reports that sixty percent of business executives in a poll agreed that cutting marketing was the worst thing a business can do. This segment also includes a discussion of research sources for consumer behavior and how that information can be used in sales presentations to support the case for local advertising.
Do the Right Things
The risk of selling under economic stress is selling price and cost, not results. Part of creating success is preparing and convincing accounts to do the right things and managing their expectations. The size of an advertiser’s voice and the impact of the message are the two most critical components in an advertising program. When a rep advocates size and frequency, the account could think it sounds like they’re “selling.” But when that information is related through respected independent authorities such as Harvard and Northwestern Universities, it can be more credible. The official consensus is that it takes eight to nine messages to move someone from apathy to action and that’s what reps need to prepare accounts to expect. When advertising works, price is less an issue.
It’s a great time to be a local publication
The crisis facing the newspaper industry has shaken advertiser confidence, but the story for most local publications is still strong. In the fragmented media universe the local publication is not dying. Even with fuel prices relaxed, consumers are traveling less and shopping closer to home. Eighty-three percent of consumers research their purchases, 67% say they went to the Internet after learning about a web site in a paper. The Internet is all about creating “community,” local publications have been doing that forever. It’s all about proximity and that’s what local papers deliver. There’s plenty of information that makes the case, and this segment stresses why the local paper is generally the best advertising vehicle.
Become the “Essential Rep”
Be the added value sales rep. If salespeople become a resource and an advocate for the business, they play a larger role in the account’s decisions. What’s good for the account is good for the rep. Going that extra mile doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s not hard work. This segment provides insights and suggestions on building relationships and becoming the “essential” salesperson.
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The seminar is three hours long and includes information compiled from independent research and studies that support best advertising practices, and examine both contemporary consumer behavior and business patterns of past recessionary periods.
Creating success for community-oriented publications since 1995