Sinclair Web Sales Tactic: Continuous Training
With TV station sales teams still shaky about selling Internet options, broadcasting companies must provide their sellers with training in order for them to know -- and promote -- the benefits of the technology for advertisers.
“What we’re not good at and what we’re not comfortable with is selling digital technology,†said Rob Weisbord, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s regional group manager and director of digital interactive.
Speaking at the Kelsey/BIA Digital Strategies for Broadcasting conference in Jersey City, N.J., Weisbord said, “Sellers tend not to find selling the web sexy, and we tend to not understand how to sell it,†he said.
Sinclair, Weisbord said, has tried to counter that trepidation by offering sellers continuous training, which they can access from a variety of sources, both live and electronic.
With digital sales becoming an ever more integral part of selling television, stations are the ultimate winners if sales teams are more confident -- and competent -- when it comes to selling digital, he said.
And it pays to ask whether or not they are, he said. “Our belief is that we want feedback from our stations so we can make the programs more efficient and we can make more money,†Weisbord said.
However, he added, he doesn’t expect sales forces to have the same reaction to selling mobile, noting that sellers adapt to a mobile sell significantly quicker than an Internet program.
As mobile opportunities grow, that should make the larger concept of selling digital easier, as “anything we do on the Internet tends to have a mobile strategy.†And that, he said, is all part of moving sales reps from the long standing mission of selling 30-second TV spots to creating broader, multi-platform plans for advertisers. “We want to go to the customers and talk about a marketing solution.â€
Comments (0) - Post a comment