Driving newspaper revenues higher: How to sell more multimedia advertising over the phone

By Bob Davis

Over the last few years, my company—Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA)—has been working with newspaper organizations to help them sell multimedia advertising. In some cases we have helped our clients build multimedia sales centers from the ground up. In others, the task has been to train and coach existing inbound classified reps to make outbound multimedia sales calls. Our experience in these efforts has taught us a great deal about what drives desired results.

Hire the right people. This may seem obvious, but it is clear that not everyone is cut out for outbound multimedia advertising sales. We have learned this the hard way when trying to convert inbound reps into outbound sales stars. Many simply do not have the personality for it. We believe in training and coaching people to do the job, but some individuals just do not have the right traits. When building an outbound sales team, it is critical to test reps for several key traits:

• Empathy

• Resilience

• Energy

• Persistence

• Social boldness

Use good lists. Studies show that as much as 40 percent of success in an outbound campaign is tied to good lists, and our experience supports these findings. Not all prospects are created equal. The multimedia sales rep’s job is to call prospects who are not advertising and are too small to be called on by an outside sales rep. But this does not mean to call on just anybody. Most markets have tens of thousands of prospects, and management must target the prospects and manage the lists.

It is unfortunate indeed to go into a multimedia sales center and see reps spending time on the Internet or looking through the yellow pages for the next prospects to call. They should be on the phones. Almost as bad is to see reps wasting hour after hour calling prospects who are unlikely to buy. You may have 397 nail salons in your market, but is this a list your people should spend a full day calling? Without a doubt, building good lists is hard work that requires exceptional management skills, but it’s much more profitable than using bad lists. Here are a few tips:

• Find businesses in town that do not advertise with you, but that look like your current advertisers.

• Determine the characteristics of businesses that advertise on radio and TV.

• Build a target profile and create a list of businesses that fit it. If you don’t have sufficient resources to generate the list in-house, work with a good list broker.

Create and manage a campaign calendar. Even with the very best lists, the right timing is essential. Calling the snow removal people in the fall and the lawn maintenance people in the spring seems like a no-brainer. But without a campaign calendar to coordinate what lists to call and when, many great dates and opportunities to sell will just slip by.

Insist on 200 dials daily. Keeping the right pace is another key to successful outbound multimedia sales efforts. We believe in the effectiveness of 200 dials daily per rep, and we insist on it. To reach their sales goals, reps must keep dialing and not spend time looking up or Googling the company they are going to call next. When management provides excellent lists and firm campaign objectives, reps hit this number of dials consistently, and it shows in higher sales.

Measure ROI daily. Like prospects, not all campaigns are created equal. To keep reps focused on the campaigns that can make the most profit for the organization, measure your return on investment for each campaign daily.

Have a Quality Conversation. This is the most important and interesting part of the process. As we have talked with thousands of prospective advertisers, it continues to impress and amaze us how many people—after just a minute or two—will open up to a stranger who has called them and asked with a caring demeanor about their wants, interests and needs. The most important thing that we strive to understand is the advertising motive. As we ask prospective advertisers the right questions with genuine interest, they open up and provide the road map to the sale. It’s all part of a proven process in five basic steps:

• An enthusiastic Greeting

• Discovery questions to determine the prospect’s wants, interests and needs

• A Solution conveyed by centering on features and benefits

• An Offer that shows how the features and benefits fulfill the prospect’s wants, interests and needs

• An assumptive Close

Manage the pipeline. It would be nice to think that every sale could be closed on the first call. However, the truth of the matter is that most of the biggest and best sales take several calls. With a level of activity at 200 dials or more per day, a pipeline of interest will grow very quickly.
This pipeline must be managed, and this is the job of the sales coach, who should ask:

• How many leads are being generated by each sales person?

• What is the value of each lead?

• What is the next step to take with each lead?

Then, the sales coach must manage each next step to help the reps close the sales.

Considering the number of advertisers a newspaper has versus the number of businesses in the market, the potential for driving multimedia sales is tremendous. But simply increasing outbound efforts is not enough. It must be done using a proven, targeted and well-managed process.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net), a consulting firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, specializing in improving sales, customer service and retention results in customer contact centers across North America. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), a highly specialized outsource customer contact center serving the needs of business clients across the country.

Non-traditional revenue sources could work wonders for newspapers

By Bob Davis

There I was, sitting in a customer retention call center for a major phone company listening to a top-performing customer retention rep talking to customers who wanted to cancel their service. The phone company was interested in my observations because of all the customer retention work I have done in the newspaper industry, but I was learning more from them on this day then they were learning from me.

Call after call would come in with the customer saying, “I want to cancel my phone line. I just have too many bills, I don’t use my land line that much, and I will just make my calls using my cell phone.”

This particular phone company is losing two million phone lines per quarter!

The top-performing rep I was observing was a joy to watch. He would take a call from a subscriber wanting to cancel land line service, and he would start asking questions.

“What cell phone provider do you use?”

“How do you access the internet?”

“How about TV service—who provides that for your household?”

Finally, he would say, “You know, if you let us provide all those services, you could save a lot more than the price of dropping your land line.”

Caller after caller would come in wanting to cancel their land line and they would leave with a bundle of services they’d had with competitors before the call. In fact, this 200-seat call center sells $28 million worth of extra services to canceling customers each year.

Now how does this apply to the newspaper industry? Right now, your average customer calls you three times a year. For a major metro, that adds up to a million calls per year or more. Right now, newspapers look at these calls as an expense and they try to get these calls done as cheaply as possible.

What if we changed our mind set? What if we took notice that we are getting a million opportunities to sell more services every year? Certainly if a phone company can sell a new TV service to customers who intend to cancel, we should be able to sell something to someone calling in with a vacation hold!

What if we formed a partnership with an insurance agency who is an advertising customer? What if we made a deal with that insurance agency that they would pay us $5 for every customer we transferred to them when they call in with a vacation hold? We could say something like, “Mr. Subscriber, we have a partnership with the Wonderful Insurance Agency. They are giving all of our traveling customers 50 percent off on their travel insurance. If you will just hold the line one moment, I will transfer your call so they can tell you all about it!”

Now a call that used to cost you $1 to take just made you $5 in revenue. Multiply that by your 100,000 vacation stops in a year and it starts to add up.

The opportunities for these partnerships are only limited by your imagination. For example, we could sell subscriptions for our delivery partners. Who better to buy another paper than current newspaper customers? We could do seasonal promotions with our advertisers, offering special prices for our subscribers for each gift-giving holiday. If we have an advertiser who sells snow tires, we could offer our subscribers seasonal discounts. Given recent weather patterns, my friends at the Washington Post might want to jump on this right away!

So the goal for 2010 is to find some non-traditional sources of revenue. Here they are. What are you waiting for?

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net). He specializes in creating custom programs that deliver measurable results for the newspaper industry. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), an outsource call center serving the needs of newspapers across the country.

Newspapers Doing More With Less: Boost Retention at a Lower Cost by Outsourcing

By Bob Davis

Now more than ever, circulation managers are being asked to do more with less. I’m sure that as you have done and redone your budgets for next year, you have looked for every possible nickel to save yet even more savings are required. So let me suggest a great place to look to cut costs while actually increasing your output. Outsource your retention calls.

Now I know that when ask retention managers how things are going, they’re likely to tell you that the reps are doing a great job, but beware. I’ve found several common problems exist even when reports are positive.

Bad timing, wrong strategy
Most in-house retention teams spend way too many hours calling during daytime hours, not a very productive time to try reaching your customers.

Chances are that your retention team is calling way too early in grace. More than 50 percent of your early-grace subscribers will pay on their own. Calling too early gets sales that the newspaper would have received anyway by just waiting a week or two for the check to come in the mail.

And in-house retention teams try to save subscribers with a discount strategy instead of using a quality conversation approach to sell value over price.

The best way to boost your subscriber retention is to call deep in grace, or more than two-thirds of the way into the grace period, and to have quality conversations centered on value, not price, with every subscriber you contact.

The robust call flow
Having a quality conversation requires a robust call flow. This begins with a world-class greeting. The first 15 seconds of a call determine how the rest of the call goes, so the greeting must convey enthusiasm, assurance of help from the very start, plus clarity of purpose.

Next is discovery. We need to understand the subscriber’s wants, interests and needs as well as the true reason he or she has fallen into grace. We discover these variables by listening, restating and assuring help, drawing out hidden concerns, isolating primary concerns, finding areas to add value, and bridging to a solution.

We have to present a solution that strikes a chord with the subscriber. If we’ve done a good job at discovery, the solution will present itself. This is the essence of consultative selling.

Next, if we have provided a solution that adds value and addresses the subscriber’s wants, interests and needs, the subscriber is ready to respond positively to the offer—but it, too, must be presented correctly.

Then comes the assumptive close. If the call flow is handled correctly, closing the sale with an assumptive approach will, time after time, win the save.

The quality conversation:
A robust call flow provides five actionable steps to improve your in-grace calling


The problem is that many newspapers don’t have the resources, especially these days, to provide the training and coaching needed for their teams to master the quality conversation.

Comparing performance
Now that you are looking for every possible way to cut costs and boost revenue, conduct a test. Find a quality retention outsourcer and split your records for two or three weeks between the outsourcer and your in-house team.

I predict that the outsourcer will do the calls cheaper and better. And with today’s budgetary demands, it’s worth finding out whether or not I’m right.

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Call center expert Bob Davis is president of Robert C. Davis and Associates, a training, coaching and consulting company specializing in the newspaper industry. He is also co-founder and managing partner of Surpass, an outsource call center handling customer service, retention, telemarketing and advertising sales calls for newspapers and other companies. Both companies are based in Bedford, New Hampshire. More information is available at www.robertcdavis.net and www.surpasscalls.com or by calling 603.472.9705.

Need to know: Call monitoring and mystery calls prove vital to classified departments

By Bob Davis

Over the past year or so, based on the needs of some of our newspaper clients, we have begun to provide quality monitoring and mystery caller services for classified advertising sales departments—with very positive results.

We have learned a great deal from the experience. In fact, I am thinking about writing a book entitled I Heard What Your Potential Advertisers Had To Say Yesterday. In the meantime, however, I’ll share some of what we have learned right here and now.

Present feedback positively.
At first we were resistant to start monitoring because feedback can feel like “Gotcha!” to the sales reps. Studies have found that stress among reps goes up during monitoring. They tend to shut down if the feedback is not delivered correctly, negating the potential benefits. Ultimately, however, we decided that as long as we present feedback in a positive way we will achieve desired results. Our solution has been to make sure 80 percent of the feedback is positive so that the reps are receptive to the 20 percent that specifies areas where they can improve performance.

Provide actionable feedback.
When reps hear about what they did well on the calls, they are more likely to repeat those behaviors. Where they need improvement, it is critical to give them specific actions to take. For example, make suggestions such as, “Decrease the number of set-aside ads by asking customers how important it is for them to sell the item or fill the position—this helps them see value in the ad.”

Deliver feedback in real time.
It just isn’t very effective to say, “Last month we listened to some of your calls, and this is what we think.” Giving feedback daily is much more meaningful because the reps remember the calls being discussed.

Score the calls objectively.
Before we monitor calls, we work with the client to develop questions that will allow objective scoring. We recommend questions like, “Did the sales rep assume the online buy and include it when quoting the price?” instead of more subjective ones like, “Was the sales rep polite?”

Boost sales revenue.
We have been able to benchmark key metrics with newspapers that want to participate and share their data to see where they stand compared with other newspapers. What’s more, our clients have benefited significantly from our approach to quality monitoring and mystery caller services because we have harvested highly valuable information. For every customer who calls in and doesn’t buy, we record the reason. We also document issues such as how often money comes up as an objection. The whole process gives newspapers the information needed to reinforce best practices, solve problems effectively and boost sales revenue dramatically.

Yet classified departments don’t always have needed resources in-house to do the job. Besides their own reps, many classified departments rely on outsource call centers to handle overflow calls, making monitoring and mystery callers even more important.

Now more than ever it is critical for newspapers to generate maximum revenue in ad sales. They need to know what’s happening on their classified sales calls. Outsourcing your call monitoring and mystery calls is an excellent way to verify whether or not your classified department is achieving all it can. And in our experience, what newspapers learn in the process provides a significant return on investment.

High return on investment

Newspaper with growing circulation points to the value of follow-up on service errors

Recently I’ve been working in the customer service department of a large newspaper that holds the distinction of growing circulation. Sure, it has the benefits of a growing market and a good product, but the same is true for many newspapers with declining circulation. So what makes the difference? This newspaper might be considered downright fanatical about following up on all service errors, except that the results make their emphasis on follow-up quite rational.

Missed paper? A replacement arrives within 30 minutes. Same time the next day, a rep calls the subscriber to make sure that day’s paper arrived.

If a subscriber cancels for poor service, the district manager follows up to solve the problem and win back the business.

The newspaper empowers its customer service reps to make sure every problem gets fixed. They can call carriers themselves. They follow up personally on each service error call to make sure the issue is resolved.

Every district manager rides with new carriers for the first full week of delivery and for the first two Sundays.

I run a call center that makes outbound retention calls on behalf of newspaper clients to subscribers who are late in grace. By the time we get the records and make the calls, theses subscribers have made up their minds that they are going to quit the paper. It is our job to win them back. I listen to several hundred of these calls each week. Here’s what I hear regularly:

• “I got a new subscription and it was delivered OK for two weeks and then it stopped. When I called to complain, nothing was done. If you can’t deliver the paper, just never mind.”

• “I got a bill that was wrong, I asked for a corrected one, it never came. I refuse to pay this incorrect bill.”

• “I paid for a year in advance, and you have not given me credit for the payment. Now you have stopped my paper. If you can’t keep things straight, I don’t want to deal with you.”

• “We moved, but we never got the paper at the new address. You seem to be able to mail a bill to my new address, but not my newspaper! I have called three times, and still no delivery.”

Every one of these problems and hundreds like them would be solved—relatively easily and inexpensively—with a service error follow-up call. Yet newspaper executives tell me daily that their team members just do not have time or resources to follow up with subscribers to make sure their problems were fixed.

In response, I point to the newspaper I have cited here that requires its staff to make the time and invest the resources. Without a doubt the apparent returns to their bottom line and circulation figures have far exceed their investment of time and resources.

With the right approach, outsourcing customer contact works

The key is to partner with vendors in focusing on the behaviors that drive desired results

Demand for outsourced call center services is rising fast in the newspaper industry. The Newspaper Association of America reports that 60 percent of all newspapers outsource at least some of their sales efforts. While outsourcing has been common in sales for some time, the industry is turning increasingly to outsourcing for customer service. Most recently, newspapers who have outsourced to McClatchy Company’s soon-to-close C3 call center are seeking new customer contact partners. But can newspapers manage outsourcing effectively enough to get the top performance needed in today’s competitive media marketplace?

Newspapers that have formed true partnerships with the right outsource vendor answer that question with a definitive yes. But before they form such partnerships, the newspapers that are the most successful with outsourcing are doing their homework.

Key indicators and behavior management
Newspapers most successful at outsourcing customer contact determine key performance indicators in advance of the outsource partnership by benchmarking based on their in-house operations and industry research. Then they figure out how to manage the behavior that will drive those results.

The best way to explain this is to use an analogy. Imagine a baseball player in a tight game. The team manager could focus on the desired result by yelling, “We need a hit! Drive in that runner!” But it is far more effective to manage the behavior by saying, “OK, now stand a little farther back in the box and choke up on the bat!”

By the same token, if the newspaper wants to save 40 percent of its subscribers who call in to cancel, the rep needs to hear more than, “We need a 40-percent saves rate.” The effective call center supervisor will say, “OK, on the next call you need to ask more discovery questions to get the subscriber’s true reason for cancellation. Then you’ll know how to present a solution that addresses the subscriber’s wants, interests and needs. You’ll be able to win the save based on the newspaper’s value to the subscriber.”

But by and large, vendors need help implementing this behavior-based approach.

So the best outsource partnerships begin with clear agreement between the newspaper and the vendor on the behaviors that will drive the key performance indicators and desired results. Then, the newspaper takes a hands-on approach to helping the outsource partner practice those behaviors consistently.

Owning the numbers, calibrating the calls
What strikes me most about newspapers who do well with their outsource partnerships is that not only establish a system for managing the behavior of their outsource vendors, but they also own the numbers. They set aside time in advance to get the current numbers, study them and prepare to discuss them thoroughly with the outsource partner. The comes the behavior management—the weekly call calibration.

Call calibration means that the newspaper and the outsource partner—independently of one another—monitor the reps and score them on the agreed-upon behaviors including a consistently applied, robust call flow. Each week, they meet and compare the scores to make sure that the outsource partner is evaluating the reps’ behaviors properly and consistently. They not only communicate but over-communicate to ensure that the outsource vendor continues to buy into the key performance indicators and behavior that drives them.

Remote monitoring and coaching
I have found that it is critical for the newspaper to dial in and listen to reps without the outsource partner being able to select reps for evaluation, and to make site visits regularly. These steps increase the likelihood that the newspaper will hear lower performers on the phones and then take steps with the vendor to correct problems.

Recently I saw that monitoring alone by one newspaper increased its outsource vendor’s performance by 40 percent!

The most effective outsource vendors have their supervisors doing side-by-side coaching. This involves much more than wandering around and observing. The supervisors are experts at the call flow and desired behaviors. They model these processes and behaviors for reps and do one-on-one coaching between and during calls. They listen to calls on the spot and guide their reps to mastery. By all accounts, outsourcing works best when the newspaper has chosen a partner who has the resources to provide this type of coaching—and a proven track record for doing so effectively.

Indeed, outsourcing customer contact can have a dramatically positive impact on the newspaper’s bottom line. It works for all types of calls—from inbound to outbound, from customer service and retention to new subscriber sales. But like everything else in the realm of communicating with customers, it boils down to having a quality conversation, building rapport, and offering solutions. It means setting goals and delivering value. It’s about behaviors!

Based on what I have observed in the field, outsourcing is producing stellar results given the right approach—managing behaviors, owning the numbers, and working in real partnership with the outsource vendor.

Maximizing classified ad sales

Five winning steps net sales from current non-advertisers

Given that newspapers earn between $25 and $85 per contact on outbound calls to classified advertising prospects, it makes perfect sense that we should be making as many outbound calls as possible. But once we get those prospects on the phone—particularly those who are non-advertisers versus expired listings—how do we maximize our sales earnings per contact?

When selling advertising on the telephone versus face-to-face, it is all the more important have an incisive, quality conversation with the prospect to quickly gain rapport and communicate value.

In my experience training and coaching classified ad sales reps and their supervisors in newspaper call centers—and in my own outbound classified call center—we have followed five winning steps to selling classifieds to prospects who are currently non-advertisers.

Step 1 - Greeting. From the very beginning we must be enthusiastic and engage the prospect with clarity of purpose. It is critical to build rapport within the first few seconds of the call by letting prospects know they are speaking with someone who can help solve their problem.

Step 2 – Modified Needs Analysis. An outside sales representative must conduct a needs analysis—an assessment of the prospect’s wants, interests and needs. By the same token, a similar process must take place when selling classified ads over the telephone, but much more quickly because prospects generally have less patience by phone than in person. We call it a modified needs analysis, and it must zero in on the prospect’s advertising motivation.

For example, the rep might ask, “What would it mean to you to have an effective ad that resulted in calls from the most qualified prospects for your job opening?” or, “What if we could help you reach more prospective buyers so you could sell your boat more quickly?”

Step 3 – Solution. Based on what we learn in the modified needs analysis, we’re in a position to address the advertising motivation directly and effectively. By listening to the prospect, we know how to frame the solution: that the newspapers print and online classifieds will get the job done well.

Step 4 – Overcoming objections. Most often, prospects will voice price objections. It is critical to answer the objections not by dropping the price, but by returning to the advertising motivation we learn via the modified needs analysis. For example, the rep might say, “By going with our print and online ads, you’ll get not only active job seekers, but also highly qualified passive job seekers who you would otherwise miss—great candidates that you’d love to have on your team.”

Step 5 – Close. If and only if we’ve done all the other steps correctly, the close will happen almost automatically. It is our job to enter this step having done everything we can to make our ad sale the only logical conclusion for the prospect.

For additional reading

Like any process, following these steps effectively takes considerable training, coaching and practice before the rep masters it. I have provided more information on in-house training and coaching solutions at http://robertcdavis.net.

However, many newspaper call centers have their hands full with inbound classified calls, as well as customer service and retention on the circulation side, and don’t have the resources available in-house to maximize the benefits of making more outbound classified ad sales calls. For details on SURPASS, a newspaper-specialized call center offering services on an outsource basis, visit http://robertcdavis.net/outsource.html.

Finally, you can outsource your retention calls without compromising quality

Win back more subscribers with a proven, customer-centered approach

Thousands of subscriptions for U.S. newspapers are stopped each day because of non-payment. Newspaper companies have tried to save as many of these cancellations as possible, but they've had no effective way to outsource their outbound retention calling. Until now.

Win-win approach

Robert C. Davis and Associates, known for generating millions of dollars for USA TODAY, the San Francisco Chronicle, Morris Communications, and many other clients with its approach to training and coaching in-house call center teams, presents a win-win way to outsource this critical job with world-class results.

Newspaper industry specialists

Garden-variety outsourcers do not have the specialized expertise required to produce your desired results in customer service, retention and sales. We do, and that's why we established SURPASS, a unique call center operation in Bedford, New Hampshire, built and staffed based on the principles we apply every day for our clients' in-house teams.

A growing number of high-profile newspaper clients are working with SURPASS. They include the San Francisco Chronicle, USA TODAY, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Orlando Sentinel, the Birmingham News and the Buffalo News. They've signed on based on the SURPASS team's strong track record and proven methodology.

The power of experience and the quality conversation

Everyone on the SURPASS team has extensive experience in having quality conversations with subscribers who desire to quit. Our supervisory and telephone personnel have received extensive training and coaching on a robust sales model and call flow that have been proven time after time to win subscribers back.

SURPASS's robust call flow

1. Greeting
Enthusiasm, assurance of help from the start, clarity of purpose

2. Discovery
Listening, understanding the subscriber's wants, interests, needs and the true reason he or she has fallen into grace

3. Solution
Striking a chord with the subscriber based on what we've discovered

4. Offer
Helping the subscriber respond positively to our solution

5. Close
Winning the save with assumptive selling

Coaching for mastery

The call flow is shown here in summary form. It takes a significant level of training, coaching and on-the-job application to master it. Our supervisors receive call flow training and coaching until they become masters at demonstrating the call flow. This equips them for what is one of the most important elements of their job: being out on the floor coaching their reps.

One-call resolution

The key to success on many retention calls is fixing the problem. Our retention operation has processes in place that allow us to work for you as a one-call resolution center. We work this way because a newspaper should never take the chance that it will lose an at-risk subscriber by asking him or her to call back for customer service.

References

For candid outside assessments of RCDA and SURPASS, feel free to request reference contact information by email or call Bob Davis at 678-455-6812.

About Bob Davis

RCDA president and SURPASS co-founder Bob Davis is an expert in training and coaching for customer retention and sales in customer contact centers.

His long track record of successes with RCDA and with a national training and consulting organization spans more than 25 years.

Read Bob's complete bio at www.robertcdavis.net.

About Ken Nemcovich

Before joining SURPASS, call center expert Ken Nemcovich worked for America Online (AOL). His call center work at AOL saved the company $9 million, reduced credit by $22 million and identified $90 million in cost reductions. He raised retention rates from 15 percent to 63 percent, and boosted revenue by $5 million.

Ken brings the techniques that worked for AOL to the table for SURPASS, and he has generated similar results for our clients.

Let's begin the partnership.

When it comes to your retention calling efforts, dial in a dramatic improvement. Partner up with SURPASS.

Robert C. Davis and Associates, Inc.
SURPASS
103 Smith Forest Lane
Alpharetta, GA 30004
tel: 678-455-6812
cell: 678-548-1775
www.robertcdavis.net
bob@robertcdavis.net