Monday, March 23, 2009

More ad revenue in 10 weeks than all of last year

Teach an advertiser how to get the few people out there buying motorcycles each week seeing, reading, and responding to their ad...
A recent attendee of our "Driving Serious Response In A Recession" advertiser seminar held last month for the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal illustrates how dramatic ad revenue gains can be made right now, even when your ad staff swears it's impossible.

Don Sibblad, advertising salesperson from the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal had a motorcycle account that spent about $12,000 last year, mostly in smaller ads, and planned on spending significantly less this year due to the economy. Don invited them to our seminar and afterward they were one of those who showed interest in the newspaper helping them apply the new techniques to their business.

...and you'll find there's plenty of money out there for both your newspaper and your advertiser in this economy.
Don later met with the advertiser, secured the critical information and in a target account session (part of the one-on-one follow up we do as part of our Response Oriented Selling course) Don and I sketched out a new ad which we then handed off to our overnight ad design team.

The next morning, Don had his ad and promptly made his presentation. To make a long story short, they're now running serious ads weekly. "They've spent more with us in the first 10 weeks of the year than they did all last year," said Clint Harris, Director of Sales/Marketing and Vice President at the Chronicle Journal."

The message here is: There's plenty of ad revenue for newspapers if they can convince advertisers to do what they need to do to succeed, including running the right content, size, and frequency.

It means a major shift for most ad reps, from media salespeople to ad strategists, but for those willing to make the change, both the newspaper and the business community will see dramatic benefits, and the advertiser will thank you for it, as this advertiser did. It'll make your newspaper the saviour during this recession instead of a source of frustration.