Local media sellers hold a critical role at your station. They drive your advertising opportunities and become trusted resources for businesses. As digital becomes a more important part of revenue, success for radio has been significant but not without challenges.
Much of that revolves around changing mindsets. Yes, your sellers need to be fluent in digital advertising so they can speak accurately and make meaningful campaign recommendations. Your sales team should also have separate digital sales goals to ensure they include these tactics in their proposals.
Those things put you in a good position to acquire your market’s obtainable digital revenue. They’ll also contribute to the mindset transformation. The core of this is being a local-first advertising resource that presents media plans with radio and digital working together to achieve a goal.
But what’s the right incentive outside of commissions? What could motivate your local media sellers to increase the number of proposals and their value?
Check out this story from one of our most successful digital customers.
Seller Incentive Program Creates Explosion of Digital Growth
Our digital strategy team regularly partners with customers to create programs to accelerate growth. It comes in the form of training, seminars, coaching and more. One client was eager to get their local media sellers in the mindset of including digital in proposals. It wasn’t a mandate; rather, it was a directive to make the recommendations when digital was most likely to help the advertiser reach their goals.
For four months, sellers were vying to win a Microsoft Surface. The competition focused on the number of proposals and their value. Sales leadership wanted to rally sellers to increase these, as 2024 had started slow.
The incentive, continuous training and access to our digital gurus changed the mindset. Overall, their monthly proposal values went from $476,000 to $983,000, representing a 207% increase. In just four months, they proposed 138% of what they had in the previous six months. Their final proposed digital for the year was almost $8 million.
Why Did This Program Work?
The incentive was something salespeople actually wanted, but it wasn’t that alone. The real success was concentrating on metrics that matter — the number and value of proposals. It wasn’t a vague instruction to “sell more digital.”
Everything starts with a well-designed proposal. Because the stations use Marketron NXT, they were able to use the proposal tool, which allows for radio and digital in one campaign.
The competition also took the weight off actual sales, which got sellers in the mindset of presenting multiple tactics in the proposal to achieve an advertiser goal. Getting them used to this as the default proved to be a winning formula.
The eventual winner was a salesperson who hadn’t been all-in on digital. In the end, she said, “I love digital.” She realized that digital doesn’t have to rob or undermine radio spots. Instead, it amplifies them and enables curated targeting.
Key Takeaways
- Incentives should be something people want to win.
- Programs should focus on proposal numbers and value.
- Continuous training on digital should accompany any program.
- A program should be at least three months, as you can’t expect mindsets to shift immediately.
- Track the increases in proposal numbers and value transparently.
Local Media Sellers Thrive with NXT
At the heart of the program is the NXT platform and all the additional resources, training and access to experts that come with it. It’s a digital advertising solution we built for radio. No matter where you are on your digital journey, we can be a partner for life as we continue to invest in the industry and meet its changing needs.
See NXT in action by booking a demo today.
