Signature January/February 2015 - 10

shortruns
HOW TO BEEF UP YOUR AD
SALES PROSPECTS LIST
BY ROBERT SILVERSTEIN

You have a good list of current advertisers
and prospects, but you need to increase
the size of the list to increase the number
of ads you sell. Where do you go to find
this new business? The answer may lie
right within your organization. Before
we look at the technologies that can help,
consider these questions:
n■ Are you maximizing the relationships
your association already has with its
industry suppliers?
n■ Do your exhibit sales team and print
sales team share leads?
n■ Are your event exhibitors and sponsors actively being contacted about
advertising in your publication or on
your electronic products?
n■ Do you have corporate members and
is advertising positioned as one of the
benefits they receive for membership?
The answer to all these questions
should be a resounding yes. Depending
upon the industry or profession your association serves, it is possible that the
people making the decision to participate
in your events are not the people who
make the advertising decisions for their
companies - but they know who does.
Once you've gone beyond the information available to you from within your
association, it is time to pursue additional
leads with some outside help.
Competitive media tracking services. One of the best
sources for new leads is to track
the publications and websites against
which you compete. Companies advertising in those products but who are not
advertising in yours represent a significant
opportunity for new revenue. You can
do this in-house by subscribing to the
competing publications and tracking the
advertisements they carry in a spreadsheet

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or database. Then call to find out who the
advertising decision-maker is in each of
those companies.
But if you don't have the time or resources to do this, there are several companies that will very effectively do it for
you. Companies such as Media Radar
(www.mediaradar.com) and IMS's The
Auditor (www.ims.ca) subscribe to all
of the publications against which you
compete and will provide you access to
data about the media purchasing patterns
of all of the companies that advertise in
those publications or websites. They can
then provide you with categorical listings
of those companies, the size ads they run,
and other information your sales staff can
use to sell ads to those companies.
Although these services are not inexpensive, when the information they
provide is used effectively, the costs
should easily be made back through the
sale of additional ads. These services are
used throughout the commercial publishing industry, and their success with this
information easily translates into success
for associations as well.

Social media. Using social
media to make connections
and communicate with people
is common practice, but is your association using this powerful tool to support
its ad sales programs?
LinkedIn is a powerful social media site
designed to enhance business-to-business
relationships. For example, if you know
the name of a company you want to reach
but don't know whom to contact, search
for the company on LinkedIn, and it will
show you the names of their employees
who are also active in this online community. You can then invite those advertising and marketing decision-makers to
connect with you and begin to develop a
business relationship.
Next, post updates on the site about upcoming advertising opportunities that each
of your connections will see. It takes time
to build an active community of advertising
prospects - and you should avoid blatantly
pushing for a sale - but if you spend a little
time each day searching by company for ad
purchasers, you will soon have a new and
current list of active prospects.

http://www.mediaradar.com http://www.ims.ca

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signature January/February 2015