Selling Advertising: The Agency Perspective

Understanding How Agencies Think Will Lead to Greater Sales• Agency process

– Budgeting– Planning

• Agency timeline

– Annual cycle– Periodic adjustments

• Agency decision-making

– Who to address– Who to copy

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Understanding How Agencies Think Will Lead to Greater Sales

• Importance of RFPs (Request For Proposal)

• Agency compensation – how are they motivated?

• Types of Agencies

– Full service – mega, independent, and boutique– Creative service– Media service

• Is there a common thread?

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Understanding How Agencies Think Will Lead to Greater Sales• Agencies are lean and mean when it comes to

staffing

• Larger agencies and media service companies are preoccupied acquiring or maintaining lucrative agency of record (AOR) accounts, frequently heavily TV oriented

• Many advertisers are fixated on tv as primary vehicle, with all other media forms often termed ‘secondary’

• Always looking for thoughtful strategic partners not just order takers

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Current Conditions

• Equal, or reduced, budgets

• More options

• More goals

• Higher expectations

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Agencies Check List

• Lower than advertised pricing

• Strategic and appropriate marketing partnerships

• Early opportunities

• Want to be ‘first’ to know, have chance at

• On flip side, often are lemmings, following versus leading the crowd

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When do you Attempt to Intersect the Agency Process ?

• Budgeting

– Generally occurs 3-6 months pre-planning

– If multi-media account, occurs during tv upfront budget allocation

– Especially important in categories with large AOL accounts

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When do you Attempt to Intersect the Agency Process ?• Planning

– Those with advance planning usually use RFP device

– Getting closer and closer to buying cycle

• Buying

– Some annual schedules/programs negotiated early

– Often tied directly to negotiating pricing

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How do Agencies/Clients Address Mid-year Budget Cuts?• First protect what they want to keep

– Elements involving programs, not just insertions

• Then look at what’s left

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Long-term Results Requires Changing the Axiom• Strategic selling of annual schedules must get out

in front of the budgeting/planning process

– 20% of your sales effort should be addressing NEXT year’s sales

– Sell program for next year, and settle for the strategically-placed insertions this year

– Demonstrates client-oriented benefit (why a program will help their business) vs. vendor-oriented benefit (making your current number)

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Do you know what constitutes client/agency budgeting?• Client budgeting

– big picture from client

– looks at overall market share, potential growth, competitive situation, product changes

• Client/agency strategic planning

– review communication needs; address media types

– budget allocated by above needs

– creative process begins

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Do you know what constitutes client/agency budgeting?

• Media planning

– individual media vehicles examined

– alternative plans developed for client

• Media negotiating

• Client presentations

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Brand Planning• Develop media objectives, strategies, and plans

• Determine print buying guidelines

• Create RFP (request for proposal)

• Submit planned schedule to AOR, or client, as well as possible alternative options

• Review and incorporate negotiated pricing into media plans

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Media Planning/Buying Process

• Fact finding

• Developing alternatives

• Evaluating alternatives

• Making recommendations

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Media Planning/Buying Process

• Making modifications

• Executing (negotiating/purchasing)

• Stewardship

• Next cycle fact finding, etc …

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Fact Finding (Analytical Base)

• Marketing Strategy

• Creative strategy

• Audience targets

• Seasonality

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Fact Finding (Analytical Base)

• Geographic targets

• Brand purchase cycle

• Competitor’s strategies

• Research (primary and syndicated)

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Media Plan Documentation• Objectives: Marketing and Media

• Budget guidelines

• Media strategies

• Plan development

– Demographic, Geographic, Psychographic profiles

– Cost efficiencies, composition/coverage/user indices

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Media Plan Documentation• Recommendation/Schedule/Time Requirements

• Comparison to previous year

• Other considerations

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Stages of Plan Development

• Initial list consideration

• Target audience rankings

– CPM, composition, coverage

• Application of modifiers

– Audience skews, user/purchaser habits, lifestyle activities

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Stages of Plan Development

• Eliminate/shorten list

– Priorities against goals/objectives

• Scheduling/flighting

– Reach/frequency goals

– Purchase cycle periods

– Special issues/bonus circulation

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Print Buying• Establish buying objectives and strategies

• Submit RFPs to all proposed AND any alternative publications

• Meet with representatives for initial round of discussions

• Negotiate most favorable buys (individual and/or corporate if applicable)

• Uncover special opportunities

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Work Flow is Circular Year-Over-Year• Brand business situation

– Sales

– Competitive

• Marketing objectives/strategy

– All forms of company communications

• Media objectives

– Budget, target audience, geography, seasonality, communication levels, creative requirements, priorities

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Work Flow is Circular Year-Over-Year

• Building blocks

– Last year’s planned vs actual; applicable lessons

– Media inflation, and cost by type/element; competitive spending

• Alternatives and Comparisons

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Compensation Issues

• Based on mutually fair value and incentive based approaches

• Many client/agency contracts are based on hours-spent, so personnel become less available to outside vendors

• Marketers will pay well for great ideas and superb media management

– Often interpreted by agencies as ‘get more for less’ from vendors

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Selection Criteria • Environment (strong editorial appeal)

• Precise targeting (right prospects)

• Audience coverage (reach significant portion of potential)

• Audience composition (minimizes waste)

• Product/service usage

• Efficiency (combines circulation and cost)

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Unexercised Axiom• How would you change your approach if you

believed:

– Most media is bought, not sold.

– Most agency (and client) personnel ‘know’ what they want to put on client schedules before seeing sales representatives

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