Category: television advertising

Have You Earned the Right to An Annual Commitment?

Are you putting your long-term advertisers on autopilot? Some clients have learned to fight back.

Salespeople need to earn long-term contracts
Photo by Nito

Not long ago I met with a very smart personal injury lawyer in the Southeast. He uses a lot of television, and has for more than a decade.

He made it clear to us during our first meeting that he was not going to sign an annual agreement. He told us that he never commits to longer than a quarter at a time, and has done it this way for years.

It’s not that he isn’t confident in the medium – he knows that television works.

He simply doesn’t want to be taken for granted.

A long time ago, I signed some long-term deals, and here’s what happened,” he told us. “The sellers thanked me for the business, made sure I gave them the proper commercials, and then forgot me.

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” he said. “I would hear from them again – 11 months later when it was time to renew the deal. Now I sign for a quarter at a time, and that means that I hear from my salespeople at least every three months.”

I didn’t have a comeback for that – there was a lot of truth in what he was saying. It’s easy, when you have a one-year deal in your pocket, to direct your attention to the next prospect, and focus on those things that are urgent.

What this lawyer has figured out is that there’s a way to direct some urgency his way, by refusing to sign year-long contracts.

Think about the way you treat your annual customers.

Are you in regular touch with them, sending them articles, bringing them new ideas, checking in to make sure they are getting the results they expect from your broadcast and digital tools?

Or have you moved on to other things, with a note on your calendar to call them when the contract is about to expire?

If you’ve got them on autopilot, it’s going to cost you sooner or later.

To earn the right to a long-term customer, you need to treat them as if the contract is up for renewal every month.

[reminder]What do you do to make sure your customers don’t feel you’re taking them for granted?[/reminder]

What Have You Used, and How Did It Work?

Adults learn by doing, not by hearing how the trainer did it.  — Chris Lytle

sales tip: learn by doing
Photo by iQoncept/dpc

 

A Quick Question for Salespeople and Sales Managers:
What Have You Used?

 

Over the past year or so since I brought this blog back from hiatus, I’ve published a lot of advice.

I’ve given you tips on

I often get emails  from TV and radio advertising salespeople who tell me that they plan to use something they read on the blog — but it’s rare that anyone tells me how things turned out.

If you’ve used some of the advice you’ve read here, what happened?

  • What technique did you use?
  • Did you modify it to fit the circumstances, and if so, how?
  • Did it work?
  • What else are you still struggling with?

Please let me know — you can email me here.

 

Television salespeople: sign up for TV Sales Cafe

Why a Little Dabbling Will Doom Ya

A West Coast Toyota dealer delivered a great lesson to a TV salesperson recently. And I got to watch.

Media sales tip: make sure they eat enough
photo by puhhha/dpc

The dealer was a loyal, consistent radio user — in fact, he told us that he spent nearly $50,000 a month, every month, on radio. He’d done this for years.

He would occasionally advertise on the TV station I was working with. On those occasions, he’d average about $3-4000 a month, generally for a couple of months.

On radio, he runs local ads making a strong offer. On TV, he’d use the manufacturer’s creative — 25 seconds about the Camry with a 5-second dealer tag at the end.

I asked him: “Which works better for you — radio or TV?”

His reply: “Radio’s always worked for us. We’ve dabbled in TV, but it’s never worked as well as radio has.”

This was a needs analysis call, and I have a rule on needs analysis calls — no arguing. So I bit my tongue until the AE and I were back in the car.

  • He spends 50 grand a month on radio, 12 months a year, using copy that sells for his dealership.
  • When he “dabbles” in TV, it’s with less than 10% of his radio investment, for a couple of months at a time, using national image ads.

Of course radio works better for him!

This applies to all media choices. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of cases where the investment levels were reversed — advertisers making a genuine commitment to television and dabbling in radio. Those advertisers invariably decide that TV works better.

I’ve watched major long-time advertisers on TV or Radio Station A  give Station B a small short-term “test”. Inevitably, they conclude what they “knew” all along — Station B just doesn’t work as well as Station A.

As media sellers, we get mad at these clients for not giving our medium a fair shake, but some of the blame belongs with us. Because we let them do it.

Every time we accept a small order from a big advertiser…

Every time we let them “test” our station for a month…

Every time we let them dabble when we know that they need to make a real commitment…

…we create another client who tells everyone that “I tried [name of medium here] and it didn’t work.”

Don’t let ’em dabble.

[reminder]How do you convince new clients to make a real commitment?[/reminder]

 

Will a Farting Penguin Make Your Advertising Better?

I recently met a retailer whose television and radio commercials feature a farting penguin.

Penguins can sell
Photo by Piumadaquila/dpc
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        .
The ads are amusing — I laughed the first time I saw one — and when customers come into the store the penguin is a great conversation starter.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   –
  • But many customers who laugh at the ads may not be coming in at all. Here’s where the campaign is running into trouble:
  • Little attention is given to the benefits the product delivers.
  • The store is in a remote, hard-to-find location, but the ads don’t give viewers any help in finding it.
  • The “Directions” link on the store’s website — a hugely important component under the circumstances — is difficult to find on the home page, and difficult to read.

There’s no way to put a hard number on it, but I am convinced that there are many potential customers who enjoy the penguins and never take the next step in the purchase process.

Marketing guru Dan Kennedy was once asked about various techniques — online and offline — that marketers use to get people to pay attention. Here’s his take:

You’ve got to put people on a track with borders on it, that keeps them from wandering off in any direction, and moves them from beginning to end to a sale. If you show ‘em a dancing bear, and the dancing bear causes them to keep moving forward along the path to a sale, then the dancing bear is a good thing… If they’re so fascinated with the dancing bear that they stop moving forward in the sales presentation just to enjoy the bear, then the bear is a bad thing.”

For an event like the Super Bowl, the case can be made that the normal rules should be suspended — it’s the one time that everyone drops their filters and pays close attention. Perhaps the water-cooler talk that a funny Super Bowl ad generates is more valuable than a coherent sales message.

Budweiser and Coke have earned a free pass with decades of relentless marketing: everyone already knows exactly what their products are and how to buy them.

Local advertising hasn’t earned that luxury. It needs to sell first and entertain later. Humor, sound effects, snazzy graphics and farting penguins are only appropriate if they help compel your customers to do business with you.

Be careful with the penguin.

[reminder]

How to Say No to Blah: Can It Pass The “So What” Test?

Timing is a funny thing. The other day I read the Miles & Co What Are You Bragging About? blog post, in which Lynn Peisker finds a hotel chain’s chest-thumping less than compelling. Peisker asks this question:

Does your messaging truly reflect your above-and-beyond-brand of Shareworthy Service, or are you promising what every customer simply expects?

radio advertising sales tip: get rid of the blah
photo by chrisdorney/dpc

The very next day I received an email from a television advertising salesperson on the West Coast. She was looking for a creative idea for a roofing company. She had asked the client what made his roofing company different, and got this answer back:

“We will complete the job to the customer’s satisfaction. We are here before, during and after the job.”

That’s the company’s unique selling proposition? They’ll complete the roofing job to a customer’s satisfaction? That’s an awfully small hook to hang their hat on.

Looking for something more, I went to the company’s website, where I learned that they are “Roofing Experts”.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

.
Customers expect a job done to their satisfaction. They expect a the people who work for a roofing company to be roofing experts. Any of their competitors can make exactly the same claim.

Advertising Sales Tip: Say NO to Blah

If you are an advertising salesperson tasked with coming up with a strong campaign, you have a responsibility to say NO to blah. need to dig for something more.

What else can your client talk about? Do they offer a guarantee that’s better than anyone else in town? Offer a product, or installation technique, that’s unique to the area — and better than the alternatives?

What does your client do that nobody else does? What can they offer that nobody else can? Find the answer, and you’ve got your campaign.

[reminder]What’s the most interesting claim you’ve ever been able to put into an ad?[/reminder]