In times of economic slowdown…use your phone to dial out! A media planner’s advice for sales managers.

In April I wrote an article for marketers explaining the importance of spending more in marketing when times are hard, and not cutting back. Now, as the situation worsens in our economy, an article in Media Week (1st July 2008) has prompted me to revisit this advice and think about the situation from a sales manager’s point of view.

As a planner/buyer, I deal with sales guys all the time and I will admit, in the past I think they’ve had it pretty easy – we usually go to them with an idea of audience, budget and placement and all we require is rates and availability. An easy job for them you might say as all the leg work has already been done by us, the media planners.

However, in this article the sales person identifies how they are now struggling financially as the rich bonuses that were subsidising their income (that were relatively easy to achieve in the first place) are now few and far between because media agencies don’t have the budgets to spend with them!

I agree with David Emin in this article (page 37), that in good times sales teams have seen business come in “through the window,” but now in this economic climate it might actually be worth seeing if their phones actually dial out! However, I will stop you there, and would like to add something before everyone starts picking up their phone… think about what you are going to propose to us!

If it’s a straight banner/sponsorship deal then let’s face it, we can come to you when we have the budget…what we require is more innovative, creative thinking.

I feel the best way to be able to propose ideas to planners is to understand how we plan, what pressures we face from a client and what information we use to come up with ideas our clients will like, something that is not just an ‘off the shelf’ solution.

David provides some useful suggestions for ‘staying at the top,’ but one which at Current Digital we buy into, is asking about company training. Do they already have a scheme in place which aims to better equip you in this current climate and help you close those deals when budgets are tight?

Training of sales teams can help staff understand how an agency plans media and allocates budgets; it can help demonstrate how to interrogate media briefs and dissect banner proposals; and ultimately it can show sales managers how to discover if more budget could be available should the right proposal be offered. Therefore, when all’s said and done these will be the tools which will make the life of a sales manager more bearable in these harsher times.

So remember, think creatively, offer solutions without request and be willing to receive knock backs if the budget is not available. At the end of the day times are tough for us all, but we all know there is a strong reason to be advertising online during an economic slowdown so we’ve just got to secure that cash and bring great ROI for our clients.