New Media Advertising…What Are You Selling? What Are They Buying?
This will be short and sweet. If you’re selling downloads - you’re most likely going to fail. Because advertisers are NOT buying downloads. They are buying more sales.
In my shop, we sell based on a flat-fee approach, regardless of downloads. The flat fee approach makes life easier for everyone. There are no stringent reporting requirements. There are no arguments about partial or complete downloads. We sell access to our audience and a fair and fixed fee. The advertiser is trading on the reputation we have with our audience. That’s all there is to it.
The naysayers will tell you this can’t be done. They’re wrong. I always do it that way for all my shows and am generally sold out.
The reason this works is simple. I know I have a large and dedicated audience. I know they’re right for my advertisers or I wouldn’t pitch the idea in the first place. I believe my product works.
So when the rubber meets the road I simply tell the advertiser that all they need to do is look at the results. If they’re selling more widgets than they were before they started advertising on my show, then the ads are working.
I encourage them to try it for a month and to leave if they don’t get the results they want. Most stick around month after month.
Online media ads work. I know they work. I have confidence in the product. I’m able to translate that honest enthusiasm into sales when combined with shows/blogs that make an obvious connection to the right audience for the right advertiser.
So if you’re not getting the results you want selling downloads, and most of you aren’t. Try selling your relationship to the audience. Try talking about increased sales. Work from a flat fee basis. Challenge the advertiser to try your show. It works for me.
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Scott Bourne is an author, lecturer, teacher and new media pioneer, and the president of Podango Productions in San Francisco, CA. He is the founder of the world's first Internet-only radio network, Netradio, and is a co-host on several prominent podcasts including MacBreak Weekly, Apple Phone Show, the iLifeZone and GMT. Bourne has also been a featured speaker at events such as Macworld Expo and the Podcast & Portable Media Expo.
That is an interesting article. In our experience website owners find it difficult to understand visitor behaviour even with good systems such as Google Analytics.
We have recently come across an excellent piece of software that not only allows them to monitor individual user behaviour in real time, but also facilitates direct engagement between visitor and user. This has been increasing conversions by an average of 15% in the websites we have implemented it in.
It seems that the individualised data gives a more enlightening perspective.