General Session: Sales Structure/The Age Old Debate
by Deb Shaw
Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell concluded Wednesday sessions with his well attended presentation on how to structure print and digital sales staff for maximum performance. His presentation was thorough, on point, and backed up with impeccable & indisputable statistics. It also was the topic of many a conversation at last night’s reception at the Georgia Aquarium (sponsored by AdMall) and was deemed by all to be an outstanding end to an excellent day of programming.
Borrell got the program started with two questions:
Is the Internet a sustaining technology to your newspaper, or a disruptive technology?
Do you want a significant share of Internet advertising dollars being spent in your market?
He came back around to question one at the end of his presentation but asked the audience to raise a hand if they answered yes to the ad dollar question and needless to say, everyone put hands up. He then proceeded to objectively make the case for a separate digital sales rep (or more) as he walked the group through a series of statistical slides that easily underscored the effectiveness of this approach. The full presentation and stats are viewable at
www.borrellassociates.com/LMA2012
Some other highlights:
- Know your target. How much are local businesses spending on digital advertising in your market?
- Spending data for over 500 markets is accessible through Borrell at www.borrell associates.com/dmr
- Know your potential, not your share. Borrell research has proven that newspapers can expect a 24.6% share of the digital spend in your market.
- Newspaper sites that have a digital-only sales staff enjoy 2.5x digital ad revenue per rep.
- Once you determine your potential revenue, divide that number by $250K and that’s the number of dedicated digital A/E reps you should have.
Access the full presentation at www.borrellassociates.com/LMA2012