LBS Sales Ideas Exchange » AE Ideas

Go Beyond Restaurants for Half-Off Gift Certificates

Stephen Warley — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:18:22 +0000

Many broadcasters have found much success selling half-off gift certificates. However, some have seen a decline in sales and have now abandoned this opportunity.

Part of the problem has been over dependence on the restaurant category to buy these half-off gift certificates. Broadcasters need to diversify a little and go beyond restaurants to revive this great opportunity.

Think about other categories that also have a tradition for using gift certificates or special offers for purchases under $100 like:

1) hair salons
2) day spas
3) car washes
4) driving ranges
5) golf courses
6) min golf
7) ice cream stands
8) kids entertainment
9) movie theaters
10) florists

You can also package your half-off gift certificate program by going after products and services geared toward specific holidays and themes like:

1) Mother’s Day
2) Father’s Day
3) Valentine’s Day
4) Holiday Shopping
5) Fourth of July
6) Fall Get Aways
6) St. Patrick’s Day
7) Easter
8) Thanksgiving
9) Back to School
10) Halloween

If you’ve seen a decline in sales for your half-off gift certificate program, it’s time to go beyond restaurants and repackage it around one of the categories or ideas above.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Mother’s Day Sales Ideas

Stephen Warley — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:15:13 +0000

It’s never to early to think about sales ideas for Mother’s Day . . . in fact some of your clients might have already completed their marketing plans for Mother’s Day, leaving your station out of their plans!

(Side note: You should always try to plan at least 4 months in advance for seasonal sales opportunities like Mother’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and even longer for Christmas.)

Some consumer spending research about Mother’s Day:

1. Average spend on Mother’s Day gift in 2009 was $123.89 per person (decline of 11% from previous year).

2. Total spending on Mother’s Day was around $14 billion in 2009.

3. 84% of Americans celebrate Mother’s Day.

4. 66% of Americans buy flowers for their mother.

5. About 54 % of Americans take mom out to brunch.

Check out additional stats and facts from BIGResearch about how people spend money on their moms for Mother’s Day.

Lead Ideas for Mother’s Day

1. florists/food baskets

2. restaurants

3. spas

4. jewelry

5. retail/clothes

6. family portraits

7. cards

8. gift certificates

9. electronics

Find 5 good prospects for each of the above categories in your market using SuperPages.com. You’ll quickly end up with 45 solid leads of businesses interested in marekting ideas around Mother’s Day.

Likely Client Marketing Goals for Mother’s Day

1. lead generation

2. special offers

3. showcasing unique gift ideas

Recommended Sales Strategies:

1. Create a special package for Mother’s Day using your half-off gift certificate program.

2. Create a Mother’s Day shopping guide on your website and feature clients on air when promoting the guide.

3. Create Mother’s Day slideshows featuring your clients’ products and services.

4. Create long-form videos of your clients’ products or services that will be featured on your website and theirs. On-air create a 60-second “gift ideas for mom” featuring a different clients the month leading up to Mother’s Day.

5. Create a homepage takeover opportunity by selling all your display ads on your homepage to one Mother’s Day advertiser for one day. Offer this the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Mother’s Day.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Create Custom Online Sales Presentations

Stephen Warley — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:22:24 +0000

Looking for a fast way to qualify leads? Email customized online sales presentations to prospective clients.

The most effective presentations are ones that provide solutions and show local business how your station’s marketing capabilities will increase their sales. Don’t just “sell” them on a new sales program or sponsorship opportunity. Show them why it’s beneficial to them.

You can team up with local business groups and trade organizations to ask them to email your presentation to their members. Remember, they will only be willing to do so, if your presentation provides real solutions, not just a sales pitch.

Below are some online sales presentation solutions worth checking out to help you qualify more leads:

Sliderocket
Cost: $24/user per month

dialedin
Cost: $39/user per month

SlideShare Cost: Free

Why use one of the above online sales presentation tools instead of PowerPoint? Occasionally PowerPoint slides are too large to send through email or get caught in spam filters.

Your prospective clients are also more likely to click on a link rather than open an attachment from someone they don’t know.

If you are sending email blasts through Outlook or from your station’s email server, you may also consider using an email management provider like MailChimp or ConstantContact to make sure your email doesn’t get caught in spam filters.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Online Lead Management

Stephen Warley — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:12:49 +0000

If you are still keeping track of your leads using a yellow legal pad, post-it notes all over your cubicle or just in your head, you are missing out on sales opportunities because of poor lead management.

There are so many different online lead management tools that can now help you manage your leads more effectively. Using these tools will enable you to sort or filter your leads by ad category, budget size or campaign type.

You can also manage your client relationships more effectively by tracking when you need to make follow up calls, your clients’ communication preferences or even the types of objections you are receiving from clients about a particular advertising opportunity.

Below are some online lead management solutions worth checking out to help you increase your sales.

FreeCRM
Cost: Free up to 5 users

Leads360
Cost: $35/month up to 5 users (30-day free trial)

SalesForce
Cost: $5/user per month (7-day free trial)

OpenLeads
Cost: $49/month up to 5 users

At the very least, start using an Excel spreadsheet to manage your leads more effectively.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Establish Client Expectations Using Their Sales Numbers

Stephen Warley — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:58:26 +0000

Broadcasters may be use to selling ratings and demos, but these aren’t the numbers your clients are actually buying. The only numbers they care about are their own sales numbers. They want results.
When you are setting expectations for your client, use numbers they understand, their own. Here are some ideas:

1) Average Sale – How much is your client’s average sale? The average sale at a restaurant might be $20 or $100 for a spa.

Using your internal media metrics, whether its ratings or impressions, show what just 1% of that audience could mean to your client in terms of sending them new customers.

2) Customer Acquisition Cost – Take your client’s total annual advertising and marketing expenses and divided it by the total annual amount of new customers. For example, the average customer acquisition cost for a local car dealer is anywhere between $50 and $250.

Show how your proposal could lower their acquisition cost, even if just 1% of the audience responded to their campaign.

3) Leads – Estimate how many leads your client might expect from the proposal you have developed for them. Once again, provide them with a very conservative estimate, showing how many leads just 1% of the audience exposed to their campaign represents.

4) Compare to Other Media – Show how efficient your proposal is by comparing the Cost Per Thousand (CPM) against other media.

Once you put your proposal into numbers the client understands, it is also crucial for them to have a specific call to action.

Most clients today aren’t paying “just to get their name out there,” but rather they are paying for specifics results. The call to action should be an opportunity to register or sign up for a contest or membership, a special offer or a specific deadline.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Display Ad Best Practice Resources

Stephen Warley — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:45:58 +0000

For those AEs who want to better understand how to sell online display ads more effectively, here are some resources focused on best practices to supplement the LBS Web Sales Display Ad Training:

Display Ad Specifications

Display Ad Tools

Display Ad Examples

Competitive Analysis of Your Market

LBS Local Online Advertising Market Assessment Worksheet

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Collect Video Testimonials of Your Clients

Stephen Warley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:21:29 +0000

Probably the most effective approach in sales is to sell your own successes. What better way to do that than to start collecting video testimonials from your clients.
You can buy a Flip video camera or some other pocket video recorder. (If your station won’t buy a Flip camera, buy it yourself. Consider it an investment in your career.)

Ask you client specifically about their results from the campaign you created for them. What they liked about working with you and your station compared to other local media companies.

As you collect your video testimonials, start organizing them by advertising category and type of campaign. In time you’ll have an archive of success stories to share with potential new clients. After all, clients want to hear from other clients.

If you don’t have the ability to post them on your station’s website, create a channel on YouTube.com or Vimeo.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Test Ad Copy Using Google

Stephen Warley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:14:35 +0000

Looking for an innovative way to test the effectiveness of your clients’ advertising copy? Try the Google Search Keyword Tool. It’s free.

Of course, radio and television commercials are much more than words, using sounds, sights and emotion as well to convey an advertiser’s message.

However, tracking the popularity of keywords and phrases used in Google searches can help make your advertising copy on air and online even more relevant by understanding current web searches related to your client’s product or service.

You can go a step further and open a Google AdWords account to test advertising copy and the most effective call to action for your advertisers’ messages.

Google AdWords isn’t free, but if you can make your commercial copy more effective, you’ll get better results for your client and more re-orders for commercials.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Key Questions to Ask New Clients

Stephen Warley — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:28:34 +0000

During your first meeting with a potential new client, you should do a lot of listening and your client should be doing most of the talking. The only talking you should be doing is asking questions.

The goal of your first meeting with any new client is not to “sell” them on your station’s advertising, but rather to better understand their needs.

To get you started LocalBroadcastSales has design a “Client Ascertainment” template to make sure you come away with the right pieces of information, so you can write an effective proposal design to meet your client’s unique marketing goals.

The template consists of three parts:

1)   Client Profile
2)   Industry Profile (overall business trends in client’s industry)
3)   Key Questions to Ask During First Meeting with Client

Download the LBS Client Ascertainment Template Now

And remember, always ask your client what their measure for success is!

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.

Understand Your Client’s Measure for Success

Stephen Warley — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:21:38 +0000

Probably the best way to minimize client objections to any sales proposal is to have a clear understanding of how they will measure the success of their campaign from the start.

In your very first meeting with a client you should simply ask them, “What is your measure for success?” or “How will you measure the success of this campaign?”

You might be selling ratings, demos or impressions, but those numbers might not be the measures your client is using to determine the success of their campaign. Those metrics will be used to show your client’s ROI and how you will impact their specific sales goals.

For a review on how to calculate ROI, view the LBS Web Sales training Client Ascertainment and ROI.

The only numbers your client cares about are their own internal numbers. Also, their measure for success should not be contingent on increasing their overall sales alone, but rather on a specific call to action. After all, we can successfully direct people to their point of sale, but your client controls the rest of their sales process.

Some measures of success might include:

1.    Increase in foot traffic.
2.    Increase in visitors to client’s website.
3.    Increase in phone inquiries.
4.    Increase in email inquiries.
5.    Number of coupons downloaded.
6.    Number of contest registrations.
7.    Number of text or SMS messages.

Remember . . .

Broadcast/Online Advertising + Specific Call to Action = Results

If your client tells you they just want to “brand” or “get their name out there,” press them on a specific call to action and measure for success. That information will immediately establish expectations, focus their creative and minimize client objections later in the sales process.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? Submit now.