The Secret to Selling Advertising When Few are Buying
Radio sales 2.0 will change everything
The sales landscape has changed over the last several years outside of radio. New sales strategies have replaced or supplemented the old tried and true methods. We all know that the web has changed the way we promote our stations, the way our listeners listen and the way we package our advertising. Now it’s time to change our sales strategies to keep pace with the way our advertisers buy. The web offers sales organizations a new and better way to reach prospective clients. We know for instance that 80 percent of all purchases begin with an online search. People use the internet to get informed to research potential purchases and to shop. Radio can reach new and prospective advertisers by adopting many of the sales 2.0 strategies presently used by successful sales organizations.
Develop an effective online sales strategy
In order to get found online, radio sales organizations need to develop an effective internet sales strategy. Often when I speak with station sales and management personnel about all of the sales 2.0 tools, services and processes, many of them look at me or react over the phone with vague indifference. The truth is that radio needs to catch up in this area quickly and it can, but someone needs to lead the way. We can’t continue to launch arcane sale initiatives. For example, one major group developed an initiative to get all of their sales people out on the street for one day…a company wide initiative. Wow. The street is no longer one made of concrete and macadam, the street we should be most concerned with is a super highway and it’s the internet
Prospects want to buy when they’re ready.
Today’s business owner is overwhelmed with the hundreds of decisions he or she must make each day. Everything is fast forwarded with little or no time to breath during their work day. Now more than ever they need to stay focused on daily tasks just to stay in business. This doesn’t mean they don’t want to advertise. It means that their buying behaviors have changed. The way they run their business has changed. They look to the web because they know that their customers do. They buy local search advertising because that’s how their customers find them. They research their competition online to find out what their doing, how they’re advertising, etc. Many get online first thing in the morning to check their emails and to schedule their day As they move through the day they work their business spending more time online or not, depending on their business and waiting for the phone to ring from a existing or potential customer—not a radio sales rep. (We still need to call) In the evening many are back on the computer looking for answers. How can I get more customers? How do businesses like mine market their companies? Radio needs to be online easily accessible with the answers to these questions.
Radio’s 2.0 sales strategies
The new radio 2.0 sales strategy includes the use of your website. Develop a blog for your website or have someone do it for you. This blog is for business owners and marketing decision makers. Provide lots of content directed at helping the business owner make better marketing decisions. Explain all the reasons why radio is an effective way to market their business. In today’s world of SEO,(search engine optimization), the more content you have about your advertising solution the more likely you are to have one of your articles come up in an organic search when a potential advertiser is looking for answers about advertising their business. Answer their questions and you become an advertising thought leader. Take a look at this site as an example, Area’s Best Business. People listen to thought leaders; they seek them out and are moved to make buying decisions. As you develop content you will want to engage in a comprehensive social media strategy to market that content and to drive traffic to it. Begin with these seven social network sites:
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Digg
• MyBlogLog
• BlogCatalog
• Stumble
Many stations today have a social networking strategy to reach their listeners. Now is the time to develop a similar but more comprehensive strategy to reach potential advertisers and to convert them in to sales prospects and in turn paying advertisers. Radio stations need to adopt new 2.0 sales strategies to reach potential advertisers as they consider and research their advertising options online before they make a decision to choose one solution over another. Learn more about radio sales 2.0.
Eric Corwin
Founder
Impact Target Marketing
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Essex, Ma 01929
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