Bookmark and Share

Break Through Today’s Difficult Sales Climate with Integrated Sales

By Craig Gustafson

“The role of sales has changed,” says Kathy Simonsen, president of Simonsen Sales and Marketing and sales track presenter at the 2011 Summit and Expo.

For those of you out in the field, selling the myriad media platforms that comprise today’s publishing enterprises, this is old news.

Simonsen, however, urges sales teams to focus less on how their jobs have changed and concentrate on how the expectations of their clients have changed.

She quantified this shift in expectations with four key points:

  • Technology has replaced sales as the go-to engine to drive revenue.
  • Lead generation has replaced branding as the primary goal of marketing.
  • Clients demand measured results over intangible benefits.
  • The proliferation of “low-cost” technology based channels has eroded the perceived value of advertising.

In response to this more demanding, results-oriented sales climate, Simonsen says that publishers must redirect their efforts toward offering marketing services. Take a page from the agency perspective and show potential clients the various services you can provide by developing an integrated strategy for courting your audience.

A quick survey of the room generated a list of modes publishers can use to help clients get their message out. Participants named webinars, video, lead identification, social media, QR codes, mobile apps, enewsletters, and white papers as platforms their clients are looking for. “You have to figure out what the customer needs and adapt to that,” says Simonsen.

But platform and expectations are not the only things that have changed in the sales game. In order to be successful, you have to know more, go higher, engage differently, ask better, listen harder, connect, and solve up.

The range of platforms you are selling requires you to know more. It is no longer enough to specialize in one or two areas for your company’s sales. You need to be able to connect your available platforms to a company’s needs—and sometimes you’ll need to create a new one.

To illustrate this point, Simonsen offered the example of a publisher that served the beef industry. They offered qualified, senior-level buyers the opportunity to go to San Diego in February for exclusive one-on-one meetings with their advertisers. This was not a trade show, but a scheduled set of meetings (in a warm place) punctuated by fun events which capitalized on the desirable destination. The event was a win for all involved.