How to sell ad space in this tough market

When times get hard, and sales begin to slow, you need to pull some new ideas out of your adsales toolbag to generate some enthusiasm among your clients. Since Biblical times, seven fat years have been followed by seven lean years. Chicken one day, feathers the next.

The lean years are now upon us. (Let's hope that they don't last seven years ...) Now, you need to pull a few deals which you wouldn't bother with during the fat years, and which amateur adsales people NEVER know about.

The first trick you'll find in most competent direct mail offers is the BONUS or SERIES OF BONUSES. Steal this idea for your sales.

How many bonuses? Marlon Saunders sells a training course and offers EIGHT bonuses!!

That's right. If you buy his product, he will throw in EIGHT free bonuses along with the product (which he has already spent a thousand words telling you about).

Most of them are INFORMATION. They all cost him NOTHING.

Bonuses One, Four, Five and Seven are 'secrets' -- secrets which you WOULD want to know if you are taking his course. Bonus Three is a TRIAL for a product from SOMEBODY ELSE.

So how can we borrow these great ideas? What 'bonuses' can we offer at this time, to enthuse our clients?

SECRETS

Who are the BEST designers, artists, copywriters and people who make ads for your clients? You work with them all. Each of your clients uses different people.

The ad agencies, freelancers, independents all call you with their copy/queries about deadlines/etc.

Who are the best? Who are the worst? Who would you recommend to your own brother? Turn your KNOWLEDGE into a BONUS which you can offer your clients when they book with you, but which nobody else can offer. [They don't know what you know]

SPECIAL REPORTS

Write up three or four special reports (6 to 10 pages long) on subjects like:

1. The ten best pulling adverts in our publication/city/industry over the last three years.

2. How to buy print for your brochures. The best places to go, and six secret tactics for negotiating with printers.

3. Using pictures and graphics in an advert. The four CATASTROPHIC mistakes which can kill your ad.

FREE CONSULTATIONS Remember how Marlon offered a free trial to someone else's software?

Well, how many of your clients would like a free one-hour consultation with a top copywriter or graphic designer? And how many copywriters and designers do you know who are now getting hungry for new clients?

Offer the copywriter some new clients if she will give them a free initial consultation, and your client the bonus consultation, ONLY IF they book an advert with you.

CDs/DVDs

With copies of e-books on advertising which are in the public domain.

You can download the Claude Hopkins classic 'Scientific Advertising' from our website to your own computer, then copy it as often as you want onto CD, and give the disks as a bonus to a client who books an advert with you. You can find many other 'public domain' works on advertising which you can put onto a disk and hand out.

TIP BOOKLETS

Make up a 16 page tip-booklet on Face-to-face sales, like the one we offered last year to all readers. The subject does not need to be on advertising, but just on ideas for making more sales. Offer the tipbooklet as a bonus.

NAMES from your circulation lists

Usually you sell these names. Begin to offer so many thousand names FREE to a client who books a certain size advert. (e.g. 1/4 page gets 1,000 names bonus, full page gets 5,000 names).

Finally, put a PRICE on each bonus. You are not going to charge your client this price, but it shows how much value s/he is getting. For instance, if you are charging $950 for an advert, and throw in:

a bonus report @ $56,

a CD @ $43,

3,000 names @$115,

free consultation @ $140,

your client gets $354 of free bonuses with their advert.... Keep piling on the bonuses and they end up with a FREE advert!! (Not quite, but you get the drift).

How many bonuses can you offer to a client who will book an advert with you TODAY?

BECAUSE

One VITAL point..

When you offer bonuses and deals in order to get a client to do business with you -- you MUST use the word BECAUSE.

This word is VITAL. Whenever you offer your client a BONUS or a DEAL, you say "I am able to make this offer BECAUSE ...." and you come up with a REASON.

Giving a reason for every bonus and deal does two things.

1. It relaxes your client. It answers their unspoken question: "What's the catch? WHY are they making me this offer?" (Is it a shady offer? Are they about to go bust? Will this bonus/deal put me under some long-term obligation to them?)

2. It means that you NEVER have to offer them this bonus or deal again. You give a reason why this offer is UNIQUE.

If you offer your client a discount on their advert, you tell them that you can offer it: "Only today, because .... (It's a Christmas special ... another advertiser pulled their ad at the last moment ... the cops have just hauled your publisher off to jail.... ANY reason which seems 'reasonable')".

Then, when you contact your advertiser again -- for a new advert -- you can withhold the discount or bonus. "Hey!" they yell. "Last time you gave me 60% off!"

"That was different," you reply. "Last time I gave you a special offer BECAUSE ..... (and you repeat the reason)".

You can always offer a new deal, or a new bonus, again giving a REASON for it. But YOU keep control. You only give the bonus/deal on YOUR terms. Your client has no RIGHT to demand a discount.

If you don't tell your client that you are doing them a favour BECAUSE of some reason, then they'll expect the favour each time they deal with you. The 10% discount which was a 'deal' becomes 'the norm'. Now, they want another 10% off the already discounted price in order to book again. And another 10%. And another.

Because. A word which you should use in EVERY sales conversation over the next few months.

Roy Preece has sold ad space, trained and managed ad space sales executives for over 20 years. The adsalespeople web site has been helping with advice, encouragement and sales tools for over eight years. It's at: www.adsalespeople.com

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