Why local media needs telesales

This week LocalMediaInsider site is publishing four reports that explore tactics and strategies for running a large telesales department, including models for recruitment ads, sales-to-goal spreadsheets, compensation systems, products and pitches.

We first ran across Deseret Digital Media's telesales department at SNA's Innovation Mission, and the harder we looked at how much they sell, the more convinced we became that telesales is an critical business model.

So first, a shout out to Todd Handy, director of New Media Sales, for sharing so much of his expertise and best practices. We all are deeply indebted. It takes a lot of time out to help us put these reports together; thank you.

Why focus so much telesales?

A critical market remains in the vast unexplored wilderness of your DMA: Thousands of Mom-and-Pop businesses who were priced out of traditional media years ago, and are just now starting to buy and experiment. Other merchants simply dropped out of traditional advertising when the economy tanked... but still experiment with "internet marketing" under the guise of "investing in their web site"... or partnering with Google.

In reality, local merchants need online sales and marketing more than ever to bolster fading in-store sales.

Google AdWords, in spite of its complexity and mysteriousness has simply revolutionized the value proposition.

So for local media what looks like the perfect storm is also an opportunity for telesales, which is well suited to smaller dollar sales.

“Effective, affordable and measurable”  is one of  Handy's mantras for product development.

Local media who already have a trusted brand and heavy traffic have a huge advantage and the most to gain from creating new, digital telesales departments. Too often they lose sight of the big picture - ie millions in new revenues - because they are still in financial retreat.

So this weeks reports are an opportunity to learn from the best of the best. Handy's  brings a background running international call center into the local media industry. The track record at Deseret Digital Media speaks for itself: revenues have grown from zero to an estimated $260,000 this month in one year and a half. That ‘s from 19 telemarketers selling digital products $260 (on average) at a time.

Datasphere, a company that provides both hyper-local software combined with telemarketing has also proven the model, upselling Mom-and-Pops banner ads and profiles that rotate into the hero/newshole position on neighborhood sites. A year ago, when we first launched the early version of this site, they had already sold 1000 ads. 

For pureplays, the opportunity to gain market share is evident.  For established companies, the best way to defend revenues may be to go on the attack.

Many thanks to SNA’s Innovation Mission, for covering it’s visit to Deseret Digital Media’s telesales center, and to Todd Handy, Director, New Media Sales, for sharing best practices with us.