I spent a lot of years selling media. Whether broadcast TV, radio, newspaper, SEO, Digital... you name it and I probably have substantial experience selling it and/or operating at the executive management level in that medium. And, I had all these experiences not because I couldn't hold a job. In fact, I was able to get these sales jobs and management positions because I excelled at them. The main reason, however, is I wanted hands-on, real-world experience in each of these mediums so I wouldn't look incompetent or misinformed in the eyes of my clients. You see, most clients are not media experts... and don't want to be. I don't blame them. That's not why they got into business. Yet, most media salespeople (and they are SALES people) are only slightly more informed than the business people to whom they sell. To make things worse, and regardless of what their business card reads, 90% of media salespeople (my math, not scientific research) have no marketing degree. Many, if not most, do have a degree, just not in marketing. They have Business Administration, Journalism, and even culinary degrees - few have actual marketing degrees. So, what they know about marketing is little more than the average business owner. Add to that, most are only one or two medias deep. Meaning; they've only worked for one or two different types of media. Everything they know about the competition is taught by people that have no real experience in that field. They are merely immersing their sales teams in the propaganda the corporate office expects to be "sent down" to the team. So, why is this important? Newspapers were strong mediums in the 1980's - the strongest around. I was working for the eighth largest newspaper group in the US. Then, the industry started losing subscribers (and advertisers) to the newest media in town - cable television. Well, when I finally left the daily newspaper back in the early 90's, it was simply to "follow the audience" to cable television. That was, supposedly, the smart move for my career. I went to work for a company that, at the time, was the largest MSO (multi-system operator) in the World. They had operations in every state in the US and dozens of countries worldwide. However, went I got to cable, something alarming stood out for me... something very apparent. The management team at this MSO was teaching the sales team things about the newspaper business I knew WASN'T true. Things that made a big difference in terms of advertising dollars. I'll be the first to say, they weren't purposely lying (at that I know of anyway). They were simply drinking their own Kool-Aid. Local market managers believed the industry propaganda coming down from corporate headquarters that was being "spun" to take a sliver of truth and exaggerate it way out of proportion. They believed it because they had no other hands-on experience to rely on or relate to. Both corporate and local management expected the sales teams to enthusiastically spread the news. Having just come from a very successful newspaper group and still managing to be a top producing salesperson in cable, I couldn't bring myself to spread what I knew to be misinformation at best, complete fabrication at worst. So, I left. I moved over to broadcast television - the big players in town. I started at the biggest NBC network affiliate in 24 counties covering two states. Only this time, I didn't change mediums to follow the audience. I wanted to know if ALL media companies were the same. Spreading their visions of their mediums or some semblance of reality. Guess what I found? You probably guessed it. This NBC station was teaching their sales team things about cable and newspaper I knew weren't true - and for the same reasons. After becoming a top producer in broadcast television, I moved to radio. Would radio be different? Nope. I was the advertising director for 12 radio stations in two markets owned by the largest radio and entertainment conglomerate on the planet. The thing is, there was never any talk of marketing or what components are necessary to make an ad work for our clients. In fact, I asked my General Sales Manager what components are necessary to make an ad more effective. He looked at me with a puzzled look and said "How should I know? Quit asking stupid questions and go sell something". He was not pleased. Ironically, not one minute was ever spent in this area to teach sales reps how to guide their clients to make their advertising more effective. Not one minute in ANY of the mediums where I was employed. You might ask "why" and that'd be a good question. Wouldn't the media companies want their advertising to work as well as possible? Well, not really. They want it to work, but only so well. You see, there's a term in media call "frequency" - that relates to the number of times an ad is aired/printed/served and advertisers pay each time for this repetition. If advertising was more effective, meaning the advertiser got better results, well then the advertiser wouldn't need to repeat an ad as often as they do now. Less repetition means less ad revenue. Media companies look at more effective advertising as "shooting themselves in the foot" for no gain. They want no part of that. So, having sales reps that know little about marketing is actually a good thing because if your ad doesn't work the way you think it should, they blame you for not buying enough frequency to make it work like it should. There's actually more to this, but again, another book could be written just on this subject alone. The only thing we ever discussed in meetings was revenue and how to make more of it from our existing clients as well as new business. So, you might wonder where reps get their advertising knowledge. Well, beyond some technical research and media jargon, they get their marketing knowledge the same way advertisers do... osmosis. Yep, they literally get it through their own effort to learn whatever they can. The get it by watching what national advertising agencies do for their name-brand clients with multi-million-dollar ad budgets. Here's a question for you: Do you really believe that what works for a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate with household name brands and ad agencies on Madison Avenue will work the same way for small business on Main Street? The method of choice for Madison Avenue is called "branding". It's basically keeping the name (brand) you already know top of mind. There are no other compelling reasons for the ads and outside of automotive competing on price, there's no call-to-action to motivate consumers to buy what they sell. It's all image because when you have only 30-seconds to tell your story, you can't really differentiate your business from your competitors. In that regard, I always advise small business advertisers that when their local media rep recommends a "branding" campaign, I tell them to "run". Not run an ad, run away from this rep. This is because what that rep is really saying is they have no ideas, no plan, and no way to help their client make more revenue or profit - they just want them to spend money on advertising because then they'll get paid their commission. Now, understand... this DOESN'T mean the rep is a fraud or trying to hurt their clients in any way. They're just doing their job and they don't know what they don't know because they're not taught what they don't know. And what they don't know is costing small business advertisers... big time! To keep this post from becoming a book, advertisers need to know three (3) things that will make their advertising three times more effective. They need to understand: The Buyer's Journey The Conversion Equation The Network Effect These are not complicated theories, but if your rep isn't familiar with them, you need a new rep or you need to ensure you understand them so your advertising works like it should. It's your money and your business at stake. Most people can guess the crux of The Buyer's Journey. That's simply understanding the conversation going on in the mind of a consumer just before they become a customer. Thanks to the Internet, that conversation is no longer about "what I should buy", it's about "who" I should buy it from. That's why it's important to understand those motivations. The Conversion Equation is a whole different story. That is more about the phycological components necessary for any ad to be effective as well as the physical placement of those components in the ad itself. Yes, there is a purpose behind the placement of those four necessary components. But most advertisers only have one, maybe two very poor examples in their ads. The Network Effect is more complicated. For the sake of space here, I'll just say this to illustrate the power of The Network Effect: If you have a phone and nobody else does, it's useless. If you and one other person have phones, you have walkie-talkies - helpful, but only to the two of you. If everyone has a phone, there's a world of information available and it's communicated quickly. I realize this may leave a lot unanswered, but believe me, I could write a book on each of the three. I'll tell you this, however. Get the Conversion Equation right, and you'll triple your leads in less than 90-days. Get it wrong and... well, you've got nothing to lose because 97% of advertising is already done completely wrong.

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