When it comes to increasing revenue, few factors are as important as improving the functionality of one’s sales team. From tightening work efficiency to improving the quality of sales calls and upgrading one’s CRM system, publications are doing everything they can to attract advertisers. Here Shweiki Media teams up with Ryan Dohrn, ad sales guru and founder of Brain Swell Media and 360 Ad Sales, to present a free webinar on strategies to improve sales.
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Sales Prospecting
Sales Prospecting is a dying skill set among salespeople, and that’s often because when it comes to prospecting, there’s not really a set process. However, one strategy to utilize is “the big 50,” which allows salespeople to prospect 50 new advertisers over a thirty-day period with extreme efficiency. This technique involves developing a chart, or schedule of unsolicited advertisers to call, and then calling them off and on throughout the week until there has been a definitive “go or no” answer. “The big 50” is essentially a user-created CRM tool, where one is challenging his/herself in volume over closing rate.
Creating a Contest Calendar
One thing to consider is placing a big white board in the office, use electrical tape to divide it into a grid, and include 12 spaces—one for each month of the year. Then one should consider their editorial calendar (themes, etc. for the month) and come up with contests and promotions that can be determined in advance and using them to fill out the grid. It’s important for salespeople to have the opportunity sell into contests and promotions, but they can’t do that if they don’t know what the contest is. The contest calendar is a proactive way to get contests out in front of the sales team and ensure everyone knows what’s going on. It’s important to pre-sell and get ahead of the budget, and contest calendars are a good way to do this.
Specialized eNewsletters
If each issue of the magazine or publication has a theme, it’s important to seek out advertisers whose market fits that theme through an email blast. (For example, if one’s editorial is all about Thai food, the email blast would only focus on Thai restaurants.) Then, when it comes to advertising, what the newsletter would include is a picture of the product/service/restaurant/etc. along with a bit of text about them (provided by the advertiser) and a link to their website. These are called specialized e-newsletters, and they work incredibly well in the B2B space.
Power Pricing Grid
A power pricing grid is a pricing structure that is viewed in such a way that it’s simple to explain to an advertiser what they are going to get. In short, using a pricing grid is a sales technique to demonstrate to the advertiser how much value one’s company is giving them so that the client feels safe and all confusion is disabled. It’s a well-known fact that advertisers won’t buy what they don’t understand, so it’s crucial that when doing pricing packages, one uses clearly represented visuals.
