Increase Your Sales with Transparency

Increase Your Sales with Transparency

           There has always been some scepticism towards advertising caused by unscrupulous advertisers even though media companies and their governing bodies exercise a degree of control over advertising claims.

The internet has created the wild west of advertising, with little or no control, the unregulated online landscape is rife with exaggerated or downright fraudulent claims.
You might want to share this humorous 30 second video with some of your clients. It is an example of questionable internet advertising with some of your clients.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_CgPsGY5Mw 

            Wary consumers now demand transparency in your marketing and advertising. “Transparency” requires openness, communication and accountability. That same transparency can help broadcast account executives close more sales.

For Your Advertisers

            One way to make your advertising more credible and transparent is to admit your weakness up front. Your customers don’t expect you to be perfect, and a little candid transparency is more likely to earn their trust than trying to hide your blemishes or claims to be perfect.

A classic and successful advertising case from the 1960′s that is still studied in marketing classes today is the Avis Rent-A-Car’s “We Try Harder” campaign. Every Avis ad at the time began with admitting they were number two, thereby making the “Try Harder” campaign much more credible…..consumers found it believable that number two had to try harder to please them to win their business against the huge Hertz rental franchise.

For You

            When you expose your negative, your customers will often find the corresponding positive more believable. Advertisers often ask us “Does anyone really listen to radio anymore?” This question, or questions about the impact of the internet or satellite radio on your station is often not asked of radio sales people because advertisers might not expect transparency in your answer.

Try admitting a negative to make your positives more believable. For example, rather than claiming satellite or internet has no impact, try saying something like:

“All media are under pressure from fragmentation and new platforms. In fact all  industries are under pressure from fragmentation. McDonalds has more fast food  competitors and the once dominant big three auto makers have more competition from more countries than ever before.

Media fragmentation has caused our listeners to get involved with other media  and to listen to us for shorter periods of time. While they don’t listen as long, or to us exclusively, our actual weekly reach has gone up. We now reach more people every week than ever before.”

Simply saying “Our actual weekly reach has gone up and we now reach more people every week than ever before” without admitting the negative up front can be somewhat unbelievable, even if it is true.

           

Contact peter@wensmedia.com to inquire how our SoundADvice Radio E-Marketing System can brand and train your account executives to make all of their presentations more credible and believable.

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Your Hare Krishna Marketing Strategy

Your Hare Krishna Marketing Strategy

          In his book, The Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini identifies psychological reciprocity as one of the six most powerful influences on human buying decisions.

Psychological reciprocity is defined as “a deep-rooted subconscious need to return effort to those who put forth effort for us.” Psychological reciprocity is one of the most powerful sales levers radio sales professionals can develop.

Even Hare Krishna, the unusual 1970′s group with shaved heads and ill-fitting robes, capitalized on people’s deep-rooted subconscious need to return something to those who give you something.

They discovered their likelihood of receiving a donation from unwilling travelers at the airport increased dramatically, if they first gave the passersby a rose.

They also learned it didn’t matter if their target donors wanted the rose or not. In fact, the robed team always had one member scurrying about the airport collecting the roses travelers threw in garbage bins, to give them away to another unsuspecting traveler.

Do you have plans in place to generate psychological reciprocity among your advertisers and prospects?

Perhaps you can offer to give some selling tips to a prospect’s sales team during a sales meeting. Maybe offer to be a “mystery shopper”, an exercise that will help you and your client uncover strengths and weaknesses in their business.

Our research has revealed that delivering a series of 5 to 7 valid business contacts, contacts which benefit your prospects and clients, increases your credibility and your sales.

At ENS Media, our sales training uncovers a long list of valid business reasons (VBR’s) you can deliver to generate psychological reciprocity and increase your sales. Contact peter@wensmedia.com  to learn more about our training and revenue generating programs.

 

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Radio: Small Businesses’ Friend

An article in the April 17th issue of USA Today said, “Most small businesses feel like they are wasting their time on social media, according to a new survey.”            The article went on to say that 61% of small businesses do not see any return on investment on their social-media activities, according to a survey from Manta, a social network for small businesses. Yet, almost 50% say they have increased their time spent on social media.

          Part of the problem is that small businesses by nature depend largely upon local sales. While national advertisers capture attention with campaigns that go viral, social media “followers” or “likes” that span the continent, if not the globe, are not prospects for local businesses.

          In the hectic world of multi-tasking business owners and managers, time has never been more valuable. Never under-estimate the value you bring to the table with your turnkey solutions.

          Small business owners are finding they have to spend 7 or more hours a week to keep their social media efforts fresh and up to date. Those same owners can spend half an hour a week with you and you will invest the time and resources necessary to drive more traffic to their online efforts, increase the reach and frequency of their message and increase their sales.

          When local businesses invest half an hour a week with you, you will keep their messages and budgets on target, write and produce the campaigns, schedule and air the campaigns, reach out to audiences which might not have been exposed to their social media and so much more.

          We never knock new media. It’s the bright shiny new thing everyone wants to talk about. But we certainly can gain a lot of ground with advertisers when we let them know how much we can do for them with so little of their precious time.  

 

 

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The Story of Civilization

The Story of Civilization

 Will Durant, the American philosopher and historian wrote, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”  Think of all the civilizations from the Roman Empire to Hitler’s Germany, and you’ll understand that the most vulnerable civilizations are those which first decayed from within.  Every business, including broadcasting, is in itself a civilization with its own unique culture.

And the toughest selling job you will always have is within your organization, not externally.

Your sales people are beat up on the street every day with objections like ”Your rates are too high” or “radio is dead, I’m using social media” or “Your competitor has a better audience.”

Over time, these objections can take their toll on their confidence levels. Your organization can slowly be undermined from within if you do not have an internal marketing plan; a plan to continually ‘sell the sellers’ on the merits of radio, your station and your company.  If your infra-structure, staff morale, training, mission statement, vision and all of the other components which comprise your ‘civilization’ or culture are strong and in tact, no external competitor or market condition can destroy you.  Stations which blame their competitors for their low rates or that blame new media, the economy, or any other external conditions for their shortfalls should look inwardly rather than pointing outwardly.  The other advantage of focusing on strengthening your civilization is that you control it. You have no control over what the marketplace or your competitors throw at you.  You do, however, control your internal beliefs, convictions, systems and culture. Those other civilizations can not bring about your demise if you do not destroy yourself from within.

 

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The Secret to Sales Success

The Secret to Sales Success

          A friend of mine asked me “To what do you attribute your success?” First, I was flattered that he considered me a “success”, but more importantly, he caught me off guard, as did my answer.

I thought for a few seconds, and scanned all of the usual clichés in my mind…. “being customer focused, working hard, a unique selling proposition, delivering value, luck,” and so on.

But I blurted out a one-word answer that surprised even me…”Longevity” I said.

The conversation quickly moved on to other topics, but the next day I began to ponder how profound that answer was.

Does your sales culture and remuneration structure sustain longevity, or do you have an “eat what you kill” culture that starves your new recruits to death?

It was “longevity” that allowed me to build my business, and success certainly didn’t come over night. There were many years when I had to go into debt or dip into my savings just to stay in the game.

And there were times when I almost packed it in for other career opportunities.

I was fortunate enough to have a savings account, a wife who stood beside me, and good credit, to carry me through the “unsuccessful” days. Do you have a remuneration structure and support structure that allows new recruits to stay in the game?

Upon further reflection, here is what longevity did for me, and can do for you:

1.)  Experience. You can’t expect a rookie with 90 days experience to outsell a competitor with years of experience.

2.)  Confidence. Given time to get a few successes under your belt gives you the confidence to pursue more business.

3.)  Learning. With time, if you make an effort to learn something new every day, eventually your expertise will be second to none.

4.)  Awareness and familiarity. We all know that reach and frequency sell….and longevity simply builds more reach and more frequency for every sales person.

5.)  Trust. It takes time to build trust, and over time, your prospects and customers simply trust you more.

6.)  Referrals. Proving yourself over time, you will have enough referrals and build a strong enough reputation that you seldom need to prospect….referred prospects will be calling you!

7.)  Timing. Timing itself plays a role. I have contacts I made ten years ago who are just now becoming clients. They just didn’t have a need when we first met.

 

We have all seen eager new recruits who “failed” in our business, only to become successful in their next career. Creating a culture of longevity could help you keep some of those successes in your camp!

 

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