A Loyal Reader Writes:
“I’ve just taken the CPCC (Certified Professional Commercial Copywriter) course, and doing so has made me even more aware of the differences between Sales and Production.
“It seems that Sales goes out armed with facts and figures, ratings and frequencies, demos and average listener profiles. They use them as well as their skills and techniques to convince the client that they should advertise. But it seems that little (if any) effort is put into the sales message until it’s time to fill out the production order.
“I would like to propose to our Director of Sales a ‘Message First’ way of selling, especially to new clients. We develop the sales message for the client even before we ask them to advertise with us.
“We get them excited about what they will say to the listeners before they grumble about how much money they’re spending. We don’t let them waste money on the wrong message, because the very first thing we did was craft the right message.
“Any thoughts on this?”
Although I know that some stations already do follow the procedure you described, I’m afraid I can’t endorse it.
Key Principle: Advertising Solves Problems.
But if you create a spec spot before ever having met with the business owner, you are presenting a “solution” without first having identified the prospect’s problem.
In fact, in one of my Radio Advertising Letters I quoted a business owner who was pitched in the very manner you suggest:
“I gave the local radio station my card at an open house a while ago. Based solely on my business card, they came up with a 30-second commercial for me. They never talked to me at all about our business, objectives, methods used, etc. Now there’s a faith-builder in their abilities….”
Although clearly your proposal is motivated by a desire to do what’s best for the advertiser, you owe it to them first to determine their goals, their frustrations, and their “pain” and then to come up with a plan to meet or surpass the goals, overcome their frustrations, and eradicate their pain.
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Agreed 100%. One of the challenges we faced in the creative department was account reps who wanted to use spec spots as a crutch. Rather than figure out what problem the advertiser needed to solve, they would order up spec spots to dazzle the advertiser into buying. My recommendation in these cases was simple: if you’re trying to sell the prowess of our creative department and the idea that we can produce results, then go out with three proven commercials in related categories that sound dazzling and produced results. Saying, “This advertiser had problem X, and we created this commercial to solve it and generated 2,000% ROI” is a whole lot more dazzling than any unproven spec spot.
If the salespeople at this station“go out armed with facts and figures, ratings and frequencies, demos and average listener profiles”, they’re doing it wrong.
@Mike, why do you think this approach is wrong?