Myth: Bringing on an ad sales team will increase our budget. Fact:  Not necessarily. Many outsourced advertising sales teams are paid on commission, depending on the contract you negotiate. This means that they get paid for what they produce. Certainly, an in-house ad seller can be paid on commission, but there is still the cost to pay for insurance, benefits, equipment, etc. Those are fees that are not incurred bringing in outside ad sales team. Additionally we have access to tracking and analytics tools, trade memberships, CRMs, marketing automation and advertising databases that are accessible for the client’s use without them having to …

As, ad sales professionals we tend to have a love/hate relationship with discounts. Certainly discounting is an effective sales method. It is an easy way to boost sales volume quickly. It is a great way to garner interest or motivate a buyer to at least try your product. Inversely, it is also a quick way to cut into profits or commission margin.  Like any other marketing or sales technique, discounting should be done with a strategy that keeps ROI in mind. Here are some discounting dos and don’ts: DON’T Discount Often: Customers will be less willing to pay regular prices if …

Like anything else, sales databases need a little love and attention. They can get a little messy if not properly maintained. The less they are maintained, the less useful they become to your sales team. Contacts get old.  People change jobs.  Companies move locations and even shut down.  Your database should regularly be updated to reflect these changes accordingly.  For some companies, without a dedicated person to regularly clean and maintain the sales database list, this job falls to the sales reps. Reps should make an effort to clean their lists a minimum of once per quarter.  Depending on how …