Sales Tip: Prospect for Success
The importance of keeping all industry stakeholders abreast of your opportunities.
Advertisers come and go. Budgets, strategies and staff change, so you can’t rely on any given company to renew their campaign. Prospecting regularly is the key to ensuring your publication meets its sales goals despite the ever-changing needs and goals of advertisers.
A sales representative’s responsibility is to sell a product—and prospecting is a huge part of that process. One way to connect with new potential advertisers is to ensure that all industry stakeholders are fully aware of your opportunities.
Not sure where to look for new industry stakeholders? Check out our tips for finding new advertisers.
Why is it so important? Your publication may have the perfect opportunity for an advertiser, but if they don’t know it exists – it may as well not. The only way that you can build a list of interested organizations is by making sure they are aware of your opportunities! Keep organizations within your industry engaged by providing updates about your opportunities via check-in calls and email marketing campaigns every few months.
Sharing key information about your opportunities is vital. Include links to media kits and other documents that spell out the opportunities whenever you see fit. You might even add these links and upcoming opportunity deadlines in your email signature.
Industry members are often very receptive to receiving information, especially when it could prove valuable to their business goals. When marketing your opportunities, feel free to include interesting and persuasive industry statistics to grab the reader’s attention and make a case for why a prospect should consider advertising with you or participating in a specific event.
Your role as a sales person is to sell, but it’s easy to forget that a key part of selling is building awareness. Maintaining relationships with your current advertisers and partners alone won’t get the job done. Cast a wide net and seek out creative opportunities to frame your product as a solution to the problems new companies are facing—and never stop being informative.
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