Epic Fail: Separate Digital Sales Teams

Did this happen at your Newspaper, TV or Radio station? Consultants told you to hire a separate digital sales staff in order to win online. You were told that traditional staffs could never sell basic interactive marketing to local business. So, upon the consultant’s recommendation, you hastily hired a bunch of hip 20-somethings with i-Phones and limited sales chops, to start knocking on doors.

Outside of a small handful of success stories, this strategy is not only a money loser, but it’s a massive time suck too. Newspapers waste precious resources on trying to make this work, while pure-plays like Reach Local, Google and the Yellow Pages actively steal local dollars right from under your nose.

We’ve seen it first hand. A newspaper brings in a separate digital sales team, and the print team just shuts down. The ‘burden’ of selling digital was taken off their shoulders. As time goes by, the print team falls even further behind with understanding digital. Why should they care? The digital reps do that stuff.

That’s too bad, because we’ve seen many so-called ‘old-school’ print vets sell digital like a pro. How can this happen? It’s simple. These legacy sales teams have excellent client relationships and the maturity to sell just about anything. All you have to do is provide regular training, financial motivation, a simple sales process and smart leadership from the top.

So think twice before someone tells you that your print or broadcast staff can’t be trained for web. If you need more detail on this issue, call me.

With major Newspaper companies like Morris Communications now merging their once separate teams, here’s the TOP REASONS why having a separate web sales team….will cripple both your online and traditional sales efforts.

1. Internal civil wars will erupt between print & web teams. (bank on that one)

2. Print reps look out-of-touch when they can’t talk about, and sell simple web marketing concepts.

3. Digital rep is blind to print and other non-digital revenue opportunities when in front of advertiser.

4. Where will you find good digital sellers? If they’re good, they’re already living large with a pure-play.

5. Multiple points of sales contact between a media company & advertising client is always bad.

7. Allows boss to blame poor web sales on digital reps, not current sales system & traditional team.

8. You failed to fully understand the unique situation of Deseret Media in Salt Lake City.

--Mel Taylor
Online Revenue & Digital Strategy for Local Media
www.MelTaylorMedia.com
267-625-5313

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