What Is Your Entry Level Solution for New Customers?

In today’s economic times how do you attract new customers to your media company? What are you doing with lapsed clients, or clients who simply advertised at certain times of the year, or just need a reason to advertise?

Sometimes Salespeople Need a Reason to Call

Sometimes sales people just need a reason to call the client. They need to be able to start a conversation with a promotion or an introductory offer, something just to break the ice, something to build rapport.

This doesn’t happen all the time, but what prompted me to talk about this topic is a conversation I had with a very experienced salesperson this week. He said sometimes you just need something to open up the conversation, to move the sales appointment to a face-to-face. Even experienced sales people need something. What might work?

Think about creating an introductory offer, or promotion, that you can give your salespeople as a tool to gain an appointment.

What Do Retailers Do?

They offer what are called loss leaders; offers that entice people into the store so they have the opportunity to up sell to other products, or cross sell the client to related products or services that business has.

A lot of media companies don’t like to do this but there are ways you can do it without seeming to be discounting your product.

Is there some way that you can look at the way that you package your inventory, to reflect value without giving too much away?

Gift with Purchase

Cosmetic companies promote this concept all the time. In fact I read somewhere that 50% of Revlon’s turnover is gift with purchase. So they must be doing something right. How can you create a product for a client using this strategy?

Many media companies I work with use a lot of these tools in a way that best offers the clients a way to get good value, and get them into the habit of using the media company.

Vouchers with purchases is another easy way to get additional sales long-term from your clients.

You can incorporate a lot of your offers into your newsletters or communication pieces, which are targeted at new clients. You may want to make an offer to the local Chamber of Commerce.

These days people are looking for value, but if you’re smart enough as a media company you can create good value offers without giving too much away.

Good selling

PHOTO CREDIT – Jason Gulledge