Читать книгу Media Selling - Warner Charles Dudley - Страница 81

As mentioned previously, agency selling is numbers‐ and‐data‐oriented selling, as opposed to direct selling, which is usually results oriented. Since an agency’s performance is difficult to measure, anything that has a number associated with it is eagerly grasped as a measurement device. In broadcasting and cable, ratings are used as a tool to evaluate an agency’s media‐buying performance. Online, impressions are currently the quantitative criteria, and in print magazines and newspapers, circulation is generally the quantitative criterion.

If a buyer can bring in a campaign on budget for the desired audience or impressions level, the agency and the buyer have a way of quantifying their performance to their clients. The agency and their clients feel secure with the numbers because they are tangible evidence of the fact that the agency performed its service and exercised good buying judgment. Therefore, do not expect agencies and their clients to give up their security blankets. You have to play the game using their rules, and their rules place emphasis on numbers and data, not on results.

Still, if agencies and their clients take refuge in the security of numbers and make their media buys based on ratings, impressions, and circulation, you might well ask how a salesperson makes a difference. It is because numbers are so absolute and finite that salespeople can make a difference. In fact, in a numbers‐oriented selling situation, salespeople are the only difference, because a 10 rating is a 10 rating is a 10 rating and 1,000 impressions are 1,000 impressions are 1,000 impressions. Buyers continually need reassurance that what they are buying will turn out to be what they hoped for. In their hearts, they know that numbers do not walk through doors and buy products, but that people do. Buyers know that ultimately they will be judged by their clients on the overall effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. If buyers buy very efficiently in media that have the wrong demographics or to which no one pays attention, then their campaigns will not be successful. So, agency buyers depend on media salespeople to help them by keeping them thoroughly informed about the various media: demographics, attentiveness and engagement levels, programming and content changes, demographic changes, and anything that will help them evaluate the media better and make better buys. In other words, agencies want excellent, helpful, and responsive service.