How many advertisers cancelled insertions with you this year? How many of your current advertisers will cancel or pull back on schedules next year?No question that you will likely lose and have to replace a minimum of 20% of your sales each year and that fact alone could certainly result in some sleepless nights that will turn into nightmares if you haven’t done anything to fill the void.
Finding new clients should occur daily and there are a number of ways to make this activity part of your routine. Let’s start by reading our own publication as well as the other information sources out there. Reading articles will reveal a market filled with prospective advertisers. If companies are being written about or have some mention in a publication or Web site that serves the market, they are a prospect. While we might read an article to grasp a better understanding of the market, we might miss an obvious benefit by not considering the company mentioned in the article to be a prospect.
Another way to find prospects results from reading the ads, especially those that recognize vendors for outstanding service. How about the recognition of achievements by individuals either in an article or in an ad? Some of these people could have an influence on advertising and if you send them a congratulatory note along the way, it may result in getting that meeting to discuss ways to help them and their companies get more exposure to your audience. Personnel changes announced in publications are another resource to compile a list of prospects. Finally, getting to the right event and gathering a list of attendees or the exhibitors or event sponsors is a great way to seed a prospect list.
It’s no shock that making up for lost business is part of the sales process. Let’s remember to do whatever works best to keep that prospect list growing. Nobody wants to wake up someday only to find a database of “former” clients outnumbering a list of “current” clients.
Any suggestions you have on this topic would be welcomed.
Keep Making The Calls,
Tony
2 comments:
Great point about reviewing the personnel changes published in our books. That will become part of my Monday morning routine.
If you have been in sales for any length of time, prospecting is a daily occurrence.
Once when I was a manager, I had a rep come to me after she lost a 12x advertser. She said she should just stay home for the rest of the year...my response, well you have already given up. Don't give up, break it down into manageable pieces. 12x advertisers aren't as common as they used to be, however if you find four 3x advertisers, you can sell your way back to the top.
Early on in my career in newspapers, the first word I learned was "Churn." Always prospect for new subscribers to make up for the ones that don't renew.
Same holds true in advertising. Always have prospects in the pipeline in different stages of the selling cycle.
Look at market trends and if one vertical is falling off go after the segment that is trending up in advertising. As we all have learned, sales is 24/7.
The Internet is a great place to prospect. Key word searches can help find advertisers you never even thought of.
Post a Comment