Tag Archives: Sales

dMarc founders leave Google

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Looks like Google’s plans to reinvent the way radio ads are bought has hit a rough spot. Online Media Daily reports Chad and Ryan Steelberg, the founders of dMark, an automated radio ad placement company purchased by Google in January 2006, have left the company.

The brothers resigned amid reports of growing tension between dMarc, the company they founded, and Google over differing approaches to radio ad sales. There was also said to be tension over the limited remuneration dMarc could expect under the performance-based terms of its original deal with Google.

What comes after radio?

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I don’t normally quote without attribution. But I’m not sure the source of this astute (but painful) observation is ready to be “out.” Let’s just say he’s been selling 30’s and 60’s for a long time and is trying to find the path in the Murky Media Mists:

“For last few years we have been mired in a quagmire of similar results. Even though we have seen an influx of new advertisers to the industry the overall sales numbers have been relatively flat for three years. In spite of that I have continued to do the same thing. March out the same standard media kit, pitch the product in the same way to the same people and hope and pray for improved results.”

But he’s got a plan and promises to share it soon. Stay tuned. Once again, I’m flashing on the alter-call scene in Sargeant York.

iPod sales drive Apple’s billion dollar profit

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Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter, ended December 30, 2006. The Company posted record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, nearly double last year’s profit. These results compare to revenue of $5.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $565 million, or $.65 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Apple shipped 1,606,000 Macintosh computers and 21,066,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 28 percent growth in Macs and 50 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. [Podcasting News]

“It’s just a fad. I can go down to Target and get a perfectly good MP3 player that will do everything an iPod will do and only pay $30. And why do a need an MP3 player when I can listen to music for free on the radio?”

Google deal with CBS Radio imminent?

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Merrill Lynch broadcast analyst Jessica Reif Cohen expects Google will team with a CBS Radio in a wide-ranging advertising deal. In a nutshell, Google would allow advertisers to bid for radio airtime using some of the same functionality as its online sales tool. But again, no deal has been announced.

Cohen estimated that a Google deal to sell 10% of CBS Radio’s advertising inventory would generate approximately $200 million in revenues and that the upside for CBS would be two-fold: “1) attracting new (likely smaller) advertisers to its platforms a la Google’s experience with search, and 2) creating a more efficient sales model that reduces the friction/cost of selling advertising.” [LostRemote]

Why you didn’t get the business

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Mary Schmidt (“Business Developer, Marketing Troubleshooter”) explains why you didn’t get her business. Her original list grew so long she’s posting these little goodies in three parts. Here are a few of my favorites from her first batch:

4. Your web site looks abandoned. (Copyright 2004? Are you even still in business?)
5. Your web site doesn’t tell me how to call you.
6. You never, ever answer your phone. It always go to voice mail.
7. You did more talking than I did in our first meeting.
8. You insisted on going through your entire sales presentation, slide by slide, line by line – even when I said, “I already know that” and “Yes, I already saw that.”
9. You talk about “solutions” but never tell me how you’re going to solve my problem.
10. You’re “invisible.” Like it or not, showing up in a Google search (or not) is a credibility factor these days.
11. You only call or email when you’re trying to sell me something.
12. You think having my business card with my email address is the same as having my permission to flood my inbox with junk.
16. Your “free education seminar” was nothing more than a sales pitch

This should be required reading before every sales presentation. Thanks to David for the pointer.

Broadcasting on the web

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Interesting analysis of TV station websites by Graeme Newell. The piece is buried in a long, no-way-to-deeplink post on ShopTalk, so I’m posting the full article after the jump.

“The problem is our mindset. We’re trying to recreate broadcasting on the web. We do the web just like we do TV – broad. There is just a little bit of everything and not enough of anything. Because of its very nature, TV news has evolved to become a headline service. Our web sites mirror our on-air broadcast. You usually leave our web sites still hungry, wishing for a little more meat on the bone.”

“In the future, successful stations will have a hundred different broadband channels, all of them geared towards a specific demo. Give up your need to be a broadcaster. We are now nichecasters and the web gives us a whole new way to bring new audiences to our door.”

It’s worth a read because I think it applies to a lot of radio station websites as well as TV. Maybe even some radio network websites?

Continue reading →

Internet advertising closing in on radio

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The Internet will receive a greater share of global advertising spending this year than do outdoor outlets such as billboards, and it is set to overtake radio soon. That’s one of the findings in a report by ZenithOptimedia, a media planning and buying firm. The growth is being driven by smaller brands, which are turning to the Internet because it is relatively cheap and can target their markets effectively. (see The Long Tail) The company said it expected the spending share gap between the Internet and radio to narrow from 3.9 percentage points in 2005 to 0.7 in 2008. (Yahoo! News/Reuters)

If you understand how to market and sell online, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you don’t… then pray that these are new dollars that won’t impact your sales.

Stalking the prospect. Shhhhh.

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Dear J:

Thanks for sending me the newspaper story about the big liquidation at Reagan Hyundai. It looks like a great opportunity to buy a pre-owned vehicle!

Wait a minute. I don’t think this is a real story at all! You know what this is? It’s a sales gimmick! But that can’t be right, it came with a hand written Post-It note. What the heck is going on here?

This is what direct mail marketing has come to. Can the marketing wizards at the car dealership really think I’m this stupid? Or, do they think this is insanely clever and assume I will, too. My guess is they weren’t shooting any higher than just getting some chump to open the envelope. (“He opened it! He opened it!”)

From the same bag of tricks:

At a recent sales training session for a national marketing group, one of the more popular tactics for getting appointments was a how-to on hiding your phone number from the prospect’s caller ID. That one has haunted me all week. If the prospect knows it’s me calling she won’t take my call. So I gotta sneak up on her. How about dressing up as the Culligan man and toting in a big bottle of water? Once in the office, drop the bottle and start your pitch.

State radio networks

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I spotted this in the monthly newsletter of StateNets (formerly the National Association of State Radio Networks): The Tennessee Radio Network has 66 full time (?) affiliates and only 11 have websites.

Of all the surveys and data and research I’ve read, this simple fact, unscientific as it is, speaks volumes to me about the radio business in 2006. If every one of your advertisers (okay, most of them) has some kind of online presence…why wouldn’t you?

In the same issue, Tom Dobrez –the head sales guy for the association– writes about “The New Media Blitz”:

“…we are all starting to feel its impact. A trip to 3 major markets in the last few weeks confirms the low level of respect radio is garnering from the nation’s major marketers. It’s just not hip. Its not now its so yesterday. The onslaughts have come from everywhere. First it was satellite radio, then Ipod and internet now its product placements etc. … It will be near impossible to get any media decision makers attention with spots only. The old way we sell it are GONE!”

Here’s my advice to my old StateNets buddies: Go down to the basement…set the Time Machine for 2000…and call me when you get there.