Thoughts On Advertising Sales

I sold ad spece in most of the 1970s and 1980s.   My company also wrote and maintains SM4.
Because I do have not sold ad space for many years and never sold internet advertising my contributions to this blog will be limited.
Except for me, all the contributors will be people with a long history and current day to day involvement in advertising space sales.

Despite my shift into the computer world, there are some universal truths that still apply to advertising space sales, be it for print media or the internet.

Selling of all kinds is still overcoming objections, on one level or another. And, one of the objections I constantly got from prospects was that they had other ways of reaching their targeted market.  When this came up I went for the two promotions I carried from McGraw Hill.

The first one showed a picture of a businessman in an office chair with his back toward the reader. The following quote was attached:

“You don’t know who I am.
You don’t know my title.
You don’t know where I work.
You don’t know what I do.
You don’t call on me.
You don’t mail things to me.
You don’t even know that I exist.
But — I can make or break your sale.”

The second promotion had the man facing forward, with the quotes starting with “I don’t know you you are.” etc.

The point was, even today (since most mass email is trashed) advertising is one the least expensive ways for your client to get the message out to everyone, whether they are in a buying mood or not.

I was a great sales tool then, and I suspect it still is.

Glenn Abelson