The Radio Advertising Bureau mini-interview: Overcoming common objections when selling website inventory. Radio sales reps can immediately sell more interactive programs to their clients by following this simple plan:

Here’s my presentation from the  New Business Models for News  conference.

This Jeff Jarvis lead hyper-camp, was held at the Graduate School of Journalism in NYC on Nov. 11, 2009.

The focus: helping online publishers and hyper-local boggers build realistic business models in order to grow revenue.

GrowthSpur helps local websites solve their biggest problem: building a profitable business.

Blogs, specialty sites, hyper-local, as well as community sites are growing faster than a weed in summertime. While traffic to these independent efforts are trending up, solid business models and sustainable profits remain elusive.

That’s why we recently launched GrowthSpur ;  a company 100% focused on helping local publishers drive revenue. We provide services such as:

• Sales, revenue and business model development
• Online advertising sales training
• EZ enabling of the best vendor tools: advertising, analytics and site management
• Sharing of best sales practices, winning strategies and tactics
• Organizing / enabling local advertising networks
• Local events and seminars

All of this with no up-front cost to local website operator.

We think we will have our hands full with independent website operators. Yet, there are some early indications that these services will be of great interest to Broadcast, Newspaper and other traditional media companies that are ramping up their web efforts.

Business Week covers our launch here.

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine discusses need for GrowthSpur here.

Peter Krasilovsky of Kelsey Group reviews here.

RecoveringJournalist provides the GrowthSpur CEO perspective here.

Been invited to speak at the NAB Radio Show, (National Association of Broadcasters) in Philly on September 23.  Here is the session info:

How can Radio learn and earn from Newspaper and other Online revenue leaders?

Veteran Radio Executive Mel Taylor, now a Newspaper and Online industry expert, will demonstrate how Radio can adopt various Internet sales tactics being used successfully by print and online-only media properties.

Attendees will learn proven sales, management and content/programming practices from local market leaders in online revenue. Bonus topics covered: video best practices, account executive compensation, job description overhauls, overcoming common objections, common website mistakes, high value inventory, and integrated promotions.

Here are some questions that Radio broadcasters can ask themselves, when trying to assess their online revenue strategy.

• Is your corporate Interactive VP well versed in online sales & revenue models?  Is this person primarily focused on building websites, driving user & streaming numbers…then just telling you to “go sell it”? Do you rely too much on low cpm, remnant ad networks?
• Are your websites advertiser friendly (IAB compliant), and can the advertiser have an impactful presence on your site? Are your sites offering behavioral, contextual, and/or geo-targeted capabilities?
• Do you ‘integrated programs’ provide quantifiable results for client? Or are you just throwing in some banner ads to a spot buy?
• Is your site search engine optimized? Are the individual pages/sections/content coded so that Google can find them? Are your sites using SEM, Social Networking, Blogging, RSS, and aggregator tactics to grow and leverage the audience?
• Are your websites user-friendly…. or is it a train wreck full of marketing and programming content?  Is your site full of non-proprietary content that users can easily get on any other online properties? How much high value, advertiser friendly, proprietary content is actually on your site?
• Are you doing more than just selling banners and streaming spots? Do you know that video, search, email and directories are some of the fasting growing revenue streams in 2009 and beyond? Do you have a plan to go after these growing budgets? Are you thinking about building a local ad-network?
• Does each seller & manager have a mandatory Web budget, as well as penalties for not hitting it? Is your Web commission structure similar or better than your new biz commission? Are you sure the sales reps are not just moving spot dollars to the Web line?
• Can your sales staff comfortably sell Web and overcome common objections? Do you know what these common objections are?
• What kind of training are you providing to your staff? Is it ongoing? Is your staff being trained by someone with proven online sales experience? Does this trainer have a background in selling against Newspapers, search, & online-only businesses?
• Do your managers have strong grasp of Web, and the competitive online environment? If not, how will they effectively manage the effort? Is your Sales management team actively involved in providing some input about the sites layout, format, and strategy?
• Do you know what your local, online revenue share is? Do you know how to find this out? Do you know which advertiser categories spend the most online, in your market? Do you have a specific plan to go after them?
• Do you know what Broadcast, Newspaper and other sites are doing to take dollars from you? Do your reps know their clients online strategy& budgets, as well as their TOTAL marketing budget? How many of your clients are spending on Google or the local Newspaper site?
• Is it OK for your on-air staff to have their own websites, MySpace, Facebook, or YouTube channels? Do you include Web in talent contracts? Do you have a plan in place to monetize and encourage these efforts?

An educated local business buys more web. Here’s a peek at how many local media properties are attracting new Internet advertisers. Watch the video above.

BEST PRACTICES: Below is a short list of how Print reps can sell against Broadcast, in regard to Web sales. Contact me for info on how a Broadcast rep can sell against Newspaper & Pure-play websites.
 
· Show client the local ranker.  Comscore, Net ratings or other 3rd party services, will clearly show that even the biggest broadcasters, have relatively low online user numbers and traffic. (when compared to the massive numbers that Newspapers have online)
· Acknowledge lower circulation; while at the same time highlighting dramatic increases in readership via the web. ( a more important and relevant metric )
· Provide consultative & educational assistance to client. TV and Radio sellers typically are provided little or no training for web sales. This makes for clumsy and potentially inaccurate sales pitches in the field. Print reps need to own the position of “web marketing authority” in the client’s mind. Print reps can do this thru patient and thoughtful sharing of unbiased info and case studies.
· Offer custom solutions. Local broadcast sellers have limited or no access to web designers and developers. Thus, they can usually only offer standard banner or video pre-roll units. Newspaper reps have a greater support staff to develop custom web solutions. Print reps can, and must offer more than just banners and pre-roll. Newspaper reps are better equipped to offer customized solutions that are unique, and focused on client ROI.
· Show & compare slides of “advertiser friendliness”. These full color screen caps can show the stark differences between TV, Radio and Newspaper websites. In many cases, Radio and small market TV websites are poorly designed, with cluttered and diluted ad messaging. In contrast, Newspaper sights are typically clean with minimal, yet larger formatted ad messaging.
·  Advertiser focused technology. Reps will benefit from ability to clearly communicate how GEO, BEHAVORIAL and other ad serving technologies, greatly enhances the effectiveness of client’s campaign.

Spent some time with a New York City based advertising agency today. Spoke with the interactive buyers, as well as those in charge of broadcast and print. Guess what? They’re ALL interested in buying web in some form, even non-banner inventory, even though they may have originally been focused on broadcast or print, or plain ole banners.

At first I thought all 3 buyers would have a separate bucket of marketing dollars from which to pull. But no. All 3 that I talked to, had access to a central pool of dollars that they could use to solve a marketing challenge; whether it be in print, broadcast, online or some other form of marketing or promotion.

Makes sense. The days of relying specifically on one form of marketing or another, are over. Lucky for me, I had a fairly large bag of tricks up my sleeve; rich media display ads, sem/seo, online video solutions, as well as event marketing placement.