The business sector has become very popular. It’s even hard to believe that literally some fifty years ago in the CIS countries no types of earnings were welcomed, except for the standard professions of a doctor, teacher, turner, and so on. At the same time, almost all Western countries, and especially the United States of America, have stepped far forward in the business sphere.
Now people are learning to think as entrepreneurs, including adopting the experience of the West. Questions about how to sell advertising can be rephrased in approximately the following way: "How to make a profit from the air?". And if the goal is achieved by honest means, without fraud, fraud and fraud, now it is not only not condemned, but approved.
What is advertising?
Since the fact of selling advertising was used as an example of the production of money from the air, we will understand what this “product” is.
Probably every second knows the phrase “advertising is the engine of progress”. The task of advertising is to attract consumer attention to a product or service, to encourage him to purchase this product or to use the service. Depending on what type of this advertisement, different methods of delivering information to the consumer are used. If literally about ten to fifteen years ago, the main ways of expressing advertising information were television advertising (video), advertising on the radio (audio) and print - newspapers, leaflets, outdoor advertising and so on (visual), now they have become much more thanks to the development the internet.
The main types of advertising on the Internet:
- Advertising on social networks.
- Banners on the sites.
- Partnership programs.
- Advertising mailing (what is often called "spam").
- Contextual advertising.
- Sponsorship advertising.
- And many others
Who needs advertising
If you follow the logic, then the answer to this question can be more than simple - the advertiser needs advertising. Or rather, an entrepreneur who needs to advertise something.
In fact, the target audience of people interested in advertising is much wider. Since the scope of advertising has expanded significantly, and the variety of goods and services offered is huge, it is necessary to focus not on advertisers as a whole, but on describing a portrait of a consumer who may be interested in a particular type of advertising.
For example, it makes no sense to tell an entrepreneur who sells handmade toys about the possibility of placing an advertisement for his product in a public motorcycle report. Most likely, there are not many people interested in its products, respectively, this offer is unprofitable for him.
Since you need to sell advertising to the client wisely, consider how this is done.
Features of selling ads
In fact, advertising can really be perceived as a product in this context. Since for the sale of an advertising site, the owner or sales manager must convince the client that their offer is the most profitable for him.
Many managers understand that you need to be able to convince the client, but do not know how. Advertising can be sold in approximately the same way as any product or service. How to do this so that the client does not refuse the manager in the first minute:
- Pinpoint the portrait of your target audience. An advertiser is too broad a concept.
- If your organization is the first to contact the customer, make sure that your offer is relevant to him. For example, if a person has a product being sold, this does not mean that he needs advertising. And if you need it, it doesn’t mean that you need advertising . Calling and sending messages to everyone in a row, and especially seasoning it with some kind of phrase like: "Sorry if I distract you," you will remind a standard spammer or consultant from a network company. Do you need this kind of reputation?
- If you answer a client’s question about the possibility of acquiring a place for them to advertise, the situation becomes easier. Your client is already more or less friendly towards you, since he was the first to write. But keep in mind that he may well, as they say, "ask the price" and choose the best offer. In the end, he could ask about the price or terms of accommodation out of interest. As a result, he may well choose another platform for advertising. But this does not give you the right to be rude to him or to refuse service the next time on this basis.
- Do not impose your opinion on the client. Correctly and competently describe the benefits of advertising on your site. People do not like to be pressured.
- Keep in mind that the advertising platform is not the final product that the customer purchases. He needs the advertisement to work: attract the target audience to the advertised product. This is influenced by many factors: the text and visual design (if any) of the advertisement, the quality of the product, the general preliminary interest of the consumer in it, the level of the advertising platform, and so on. For your part, you cannot guarantee that it is your site that will increase the level of customer sales, since it is not in your competence to control and be responsible for all factors affecting the success of advertising. A clever advertiser will push statements like: "Yes, we guarantee you a 100% result, sales will grow by 27% at least!" - because he understands that not everything depends on the advertising platform. And if he believes you, you give him the right to blame you in case of failure, even if the designer, copywriter, or just the unpopular product is to blame.
The nuances of effective advertising sales
How to sell advertising correctly was discussed a little higher. Surely the tips reminded you of standard recommendations for selling any product. No wonder: advertising is the same product. However, it has its own unique features, which are important to consider when choosing how and where to sell advertising.
Many marketers say selling ads is money out of thin air. In fact this is not true. Typically, such a service is offered either by the owners of marketing agencies, or organizations specializing in the preparation of advertising, or the owners of fairly popular advertising platforms: sites, blogs, newspapers, public posts on social networks and so on. All these people have invested time and money in the development of their business and as a result have reached the level where they can offer you advertising at home. Just creating a VKontakte group, filling it with a thousand subscribers and offering advertising is not a very reasonable move, because such advertising will not work, and the “business” will quickly disappear. Moreover, social networks are now monitoring whether the group is being promoted in honest or dishonest ways.
It is also important what kind of advertising the client needs: print, television, outdoor (banners, ads) or advertising on the Internet. It has different spheres of action, and therefore different methods of sale.
What helps sell ads:
- Professionalism, courtesy and correct behavior of the sales manager. Nobody likes annoying calls: "Well, buy it!"
- Relevance, compliance of this method of advertising with a customer’s product. It does not make sense for an entrepreneur who sews custom-made youth clothes to advertise in a newspaper whose average age is forty years. It also makes no sense to advertise on a banner (if ordered outdoor), if there are almost no people in that side of the town.
- Attendance of the advertised site. For example, there are two sites. One of them has an audience of more than two hundred thousand people, and the second has five hundred people. What do you think advertising on which of them will be noticed by a large number of people?
- Correspondence of price and quality. We recall the example from the previous paragraph. A site with an audience of two hundred thousand people offers to advertise for fifty dollars a month. The cost of advertising on a site with an audience of five hundred people is forty-five dollars. The benefits are obvious.
Where do they sell and buy ads?
The very first thing you need to understand before communicating with customers is where to sell advertising. Decide which advertising platforms you offer and find out the needs of your target audience.
Practice shows that the best-selling advertising is advertising on the Internet. As one entrepreneur said: "The Internet is a cool drug, everyone is sitting there." That is, the audience of Internet users is quite huge, and it is much easier to find representatives of your target audience. Especially if their age is from 13 to 60 years.
Internet to help: how to sell ads
If the sale of advertising in the media or on radio and television is more or less clear, then in the case of advertising on the Internet there are still many questions. First of all, they are associated with a certain "cheating": there are sites and public places in social networks where traffic is collected artificially. Readers, subscribers, as it were, but actually they are not - the statistics display false information, and a sense of readability is created by bot programs. In publics on social networks there can be a large number of subscribers, but even there it may well be bots or joined for a small fee.
Therefore, honesty is important in how to sell ads on the Internet. It makes no sense for the client to order and place advertising on the Internet site, where there will be no one to read it.
If the site is popular, readable, then advertising on it will be expensive. Since only the owner or administrator of the site, as well as authorized persons can sell advertising on the site, communication must be conducted with them.
Typically, an advertiser is assigned a small area on the site for a banner. This option is the easiest.
However, there are more complicated options, but they are often more effective. For example, posting articles or other information on the site with a link to the advertised product. For example, the Russian site Adme does this.
How to sell contextual advertising
Contextual advertising - advertising on search engines or websites, which is displayed based on user requests.
There are two main types of contextual advertising:
- Search engine. It is shown in the search engine after a specific request.
- Thematic. Shown on partner sites. The user's browser remembers what queries users entered into search engines. Then, ads for these requests are displayed on certain sections of partner sites.
When setting up search advertising, fill in the data in the advertising account on the site of the selected search engine: keywords, cost of displaying ads, demographic indicators of users - representatives of the target audience. The advertiser pays for the action performed by the user (CPC payment model - Cost Per Click) or for the number of ad impressions.
Contextual advertising has a huge advantage: advertising of any goods or services is shown to those users who are already interested in them, so the likelihood of the target action increases. Therefore, it is in great demand, and it is easier to sell it.
Features of social media marketing
Social networks were originally created as platforms for entertainment, but now many users use them, including for educational and work purposes. Publics, pages and groups on social networks are especially helpful in this.
To sell advertising in a group, you need to promote this very group enough to collect the appropriate target audience. Otherwise, it makes no sense for the client to purchase ads in a group where there are no subscribers, or they exist, but they are bots (fake pages) or simply inactive in this group (that is, there are subscribers, but they do not particularly enter the group).
Telephone sale of advertising
Since selling ads over the phone is a pretty difficult task, leading marketing experts recommend a creative approach. The difficulty lies in the fact that the client cannot quickly decide on the purchase of a place for advertising, since he most likely did not come across your site before. He can listen to your proposal, evaluate the benefits, perhaps even be interested. But in the end, he will probably ask you to call him back later, so that he can find your organization’s website on the Internet, read reviews.
The request is absolutely normal. However, there are certain risks for you as a seller. The client is interested in the offer, but while he will look at your site, his interest may fade away. And not necessarily because your site is not comfortable with it, it is a commonplace psychology. After a flashed interest in a product, a person begins to speculate whether this interest is justified.
Or another option: the client will not have time or desire to look for information about you. He plans it for later, and then forgets.
Therefore, it’s better to talk on the phone with customers who have come to you through advertisements, for example from the Internet, and have already decided or almost decided for themselves that they want to advertise with you. In this case, you do not "push in" the goods to them, but agree with them about the sale.
Conclusion
In order to know exactly how to sell an advertisement or any other product, it is usually not enough just to talk about such an opportunity. Any product promotion strategy requires some careful preparation, starting from collecting marketing data, drawing up a portrait of representatives of the target audience and ending with direct or indirect communication with them.
Difficulties in how to properly sell ads are primarily associated with insufficient qualifications of sales managers who often act as consultants to a network business or an intrusive online store. Managers need to behave correctly, and ideally, to undergo modern training on working with clients.