Re: Selling Banner Ads

From: Whiteside, John <John.Whiteside_at_CWUSA.COM>
Date: Fri 7 Apr 2000 13:45:05 -0400

RICHARD KIES WROTE:
> The best approach, IMHO and based on personal
> experience, is to make the first sales call by
> phone...I think the days of knocking on doors is "old
> school" and smacks of photocopier sales (no offense
> here, I used to be one myself). Start with a phone
> call to introduce yourself and your company, then you
> can use e-mail to follow-up...once you have established
> a contact, then ask for the face-to-face meeting if
> needed. Despite all this wonderful techonology, nothing
> beats "belly-to-belly" meetings for closing sales."

Speaking as an ad buyer.... don't call me. Please. Send
me something by postal mail (not email) and I will look
at it. Follow up with a phone call. If you leave me a
voicemail (very likely if I don't recognize the number
popping up on caller ID) it's very likely I won't
interrupt what I'm doing to answer, and if I don't know
who you are, the odds are against getting a call back.
Cold call voice messages that motivate me to pick up
the phone are rare. Follow-ups to material I've
received get a much better response.

I'm not trying to make life harder for ad sales people,
but I am pretty busy, so you have to give me a good
reason to talk to you.

Start by email and you'll be a spammer in my mind, and
it will be even harder to get through.

John Whiteside
Senior Marketing Manager, eMessaging Solutions
Cable & Wireless
john.whiteside_at_cwusa.com
www.surecom.com / www.cwusa.com





Received on Fri Apr 07 2000 - 12:45:05 CDT