Katie has hands on marketing experience and creating all-inclusive marketing campaigns for clients utilizing traditional media, new media, and event marketing. She has worked with media agencies and clients of various sizes, in all different industries. She has been on the sales side of operations as a salesperson and Sales Manager for a group of radio stations. Katie loves creating, building, and maintaining relationships with clients, media, and teaching, so being able to teach media to sales teams is the best of both worlds.
I get it. It’s scary to learn a completely new product thatyou’re unfamiliar with and be expected to go out to your clients and pitch themanother product that’s going to get their “doors-a-swingin’, and theirregisters-a-ringin’”. I’m here to tell you to come on in-the water is warm!
When I first started pitching digital, I thought I was nevergoing to be able to wrap my head around all that there was to offer becausethere was so much information. How was I going to know the industry lingo? Howwould I know what products were going to be the right ones to offer? What wasconsidered a successful campaign? Clients couldn’t possibly afford to give memore money on top of what they were already spending, right? Wrong.
First off, I never used industry jargon with most of myclients. I can’t tell you how many times I used food as analogies to explaincertain products, and as soon as I did that, lightbulbs went off. Like using achocolate chip cookie to explain mobile conquesting and geofencing. The entirecookie is your geographical location and targeting categories, and yourchocolate chips are your geofences.
I also made it a point to use real life examples so that itwas something the client could relate to. If you show that as a marketer youunderstand where your clients are coming from, they trust you and start to openup. If you gain that credibility as wanting to help them instead of just takingtheir money and running, you’ve done the hard work. The sales rep that canexplain digital in the most understanding way wins the sale.
When we are pitching traditional media to clients, we pair themup with radio stations that fit their demographics, or TV programs that reach acertain audience. Digital is literally the same thing, just on steroids. Radioand TV allow a business to tell their story to the masses (think of a shotgunshot), and digital allows them to pinpoint specific people lookingfor/interested in certain products (think of a rifle shot). The moral of thestory here is that there really are no wrong products to pitch to clients fordigital.
“How will I know if this is working?” or “I want to see myROI” are two phrases we come up against over and over and over again and it’sdifficult because airwaves aren’t tangible. You’re still going to get thosequestions with digital, but now you don’t have to squirm in your seat and beataround the bush. With digital, you’re able to show engagement and interaction, youcan show how many people saw an ad and then went to a location. You are able tomonitor website traffic and use Google Analytics to see where people are comingfrom, how long they are staying on a page, and where they are going from pageto page; it’s remarkable. If you can show these things to you clients, you’reestablishing yourself as the marketing guru, which will lead to more sales.
The most astonishing thing I saw when I started sellingdigital was the willingness for business owners to open up their wallets alittle bit more (no, that’s not a typo). It took me a long time to realize Iwasn’t reaching into the personal pockets of business owners but instead theirbusiness pockets, and those are two very different pockets. That first timethat you ask for more money and you get it, you will be hooked. If you areconfident in what you are putting together and can gain the access andcredibility, you’re going to have a much easier time getting those digitaldollars. I always compare adding digital to your current radio/TV campaign as a“do you want fries with that?” Nine times out of 10, you want fries with that,and your clients do too.
