Although making a sale and gaining an advertiser is something to celebrate, that’s simply the first battle. What’s important after that is, of course, advertiser retention. There are several ways to incentivize advertisers, and in this free webinar from Shweiki Media Printing Company, Ryan Dohrn—founder of Brain Swell Media and 360 Ad Sales—offers excellent examples monthly, quarterly and yearly incentive programs. From developing relationships to educating advertisers, here are some must-know strategies for advertiser retention…
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Developing an Advertiser Retention Program
One excellent strategy for advertiser retention is to break down the year into a monthly, quarterly, and yearly incentive program. By breaking down the year into an advertiser retention program (or advertiser education program), one is designing a set list of strategies implemented solely to reduce churn and add value to the advertiser/client relationship. Educating advertisers helps them become good advertisers, which become happy advertisers, which—by proxy—become repeat advertisers.
Monthly Incentive Program
“Lets talk about your monthly incentive column. I want to send out at least once a month, an email that contains one or several business articles.” Dohrn believes that the best incentive for retention is to become an asset to the client. One can accomplish this is many ways, but simply relaying helpful business information via email tells the client that one is well-read his/herself, and that the client’s success is just as important as theirs. “When I’m emailing a business article to my customers, I’ve gone to Inc.com or I’ve gone to Fast Company or I’ve gone to Marketing Sherpa. I’ve gone to a website and if I found a cool business article, then using my CRM tool, I send a mass email to my customers and say, hey I’ve came across this article/articles, I thought I would share it to you, and I think it will be important to your business.”
Bonus Bucks
Another monthly incentive idea is to send clients monthly “bonus bucks” for redeemable rewards. One can create multiple five-, ten- and fifty-dollar bonus bucks to be sent to the client whenever one receives the bill. After a certain period of time, the client can return the bucks for a discount on ad space or an additional product.
Quarterly Incentive Program
A good strategy for quarterly incentives is developing a leadership position around the client. From monthly webinars to one-on-one lunches to free consulting meetings, whenever the client invests in their own education, one can use that as a platform for relationship growth. One way to do this is through a quarterly lunch-and-learn series, in which all advertisers are invited to a set lunch destination and treated to a top-knotch speaker or opening the floor for open discussion on a chosen topic.
Yearly Incentive Program
Another good idea is to offer clients media planning with experts. Often advertisers don’t know exactly what they want, so its important to take the time to sit down with them and put together a media plan for the year, taking into consideration their main goals and what they hope to accomplish in the next 365 days. This might include talking to them about their other advertising—perhaps with one’s competitors—but one can look at it from the sense that it’s better to know where the customer is running than to be guessing about it. Media planning is a valuable service to offer advertisers, whether said planning involves finding and fixing holes in the client’s arsenal, conducting website reviews, holding media-planning meetings, or even creating and applying a “mission critical checklist.”
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