There’s a Better Way to Reach New Advertisers
Don’t lose more ad revenue waiting to make a decision
There’s a belief in radio today that things are beginning to change. Our industry prospects are looking up. Others believe that the industry now faces the challenge to increase pricing to counteract our recent pricing strategies of the past year. I don’t know anyone who thinks it is going to be easy to increase pricing to existing clients that have experienced radio’s recent desperation.
There’s a solution to this pricing issue. There needs to be an aggressive push for new non- radio advertisers. Many, if not most, radio stations continue to practice sales strategies that are becoming obsolete. Today 75% of new business purchases begin with an online search. Where are we? Yes we have a website, but who are we targeting, not potential advertisers considering one advertising solution over another. In fact, most station websites hide their advertising link either at the bottom of the homepage or buried on the top navigation bar at the bottom of some non descript heading. Where is yours? We must have a strong web presence devoted to reaching the non-radio advertiser where they make a buying decision—on the web.
There is a better way to reach new customers. We have created a new company to do just that. It merges the best offline sales strategies including cold calling etc. along with the best online prospecting tactics to deliver qualified advertising prospects to our media partners. The company is Area’s Best Businesses, www.areasbestbusinesses.com and it is dedicated to matching small and midsize companies with the best advertising solution and provider. These providers represent every available marketing and advertising solution from search and website development to radio and television. You might say that Area’s Best is the matchmaker for the media industry.
Some radio station sales managers have said to me, why do we need you to prospect, we have our sales reps to do that. My response to them is that for every day your inventory goes unsold you lose revenue, everyday you sell cheap spots you lose revenue. If you presently have twenty or thirty maybe fifty reps selling each day, you don’t have enough. Do you know that for every one rep that you employee there are hundreds of others trying to sell competitive media? Think about the power of having more reps working on behalf of your organization and a website that systematically generates radio advertising prospects for your present reps. There is a better way to reach new advertisers and you can take advantage of this innovative prospecting tool.
By Eric Corwin on September 25, 2009
Learn how to become a partner and start receiving advertising prospects
