Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector
Talk to anyone who sells traditional media and they’ll tell you one of their biggest challenges is to keep the attention of their clients “on track”. Too many of the salespeople I work with tell me that most SME’s want to discuss the perception of how cheaply and effectively social media is for their business compared to the traditional media.
Here’s a few thoughts you might like to consider:
- Get some facts on the table
- Posts on Twitter and Facebook reach just 2% of their followers and less than 1% of followers actually interact with these posts (source: Forrester.com)
- Only 26% of small businesses rate social media ROI as “extraordinary” or “excellent” (source: cursivecontent.com)
- Social media costs are increasing dramatically – Facebook increased ad fees by 123% year on year (source: Wall Street Journal)
- Demonstrate the power of “traditional” advertising and social media
- It’s not advertising vs. social media. The best outcome is to harness both as they complement each other. Explain to customers and prospective customers how similar businesses have used social media and traditional advertising in combination.
- Outline some case studies and research showing multi-channel campaigns have been shown to generate 300% more sales than single channel marketing (source: cjgdigitalmarketing.com)
- Have conversations about local advertising
- Uncover the client’s target market. Can those people be effectively reached via social media or traditional media? Where do they live? Does a retailer with three or four outlets need or want exposure outside of his core target marketplace?
- Explain how advertising using your medium helps reach the right group of prospects and how this can increase awareness, build trust and generate sales
There is no doubt that for many SME’s social media has been revolutionary. Some have used it to replace their existing advertising, however it’s not a cure-all.
Be proactive in demonstrating the power of traditional advertising and the results it continues to generate but make sure you do it within the framework of a powerful, thought provoking business conversation.
About the author
Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
