Today's local media sellers must also be marketers

It’s no secret that local media sellers must wear many hats. You often have to generate leads and demand in addition to prospecting, pitching and proposing. Getting the message out about your station’s ad offerings will need a microphone, as you can be the provider for traditional and digital media buys.

Finding qualified leads is difficult. The Center for Sales Strategy Fifth Annual Media Sales Report found that 43% of your peers find this more challenging. The study also showed that 63% of local sellers want a marketing plan that attracts more leads.

Marketing requires resources, strategies and budget. Your station may not have all these readily available to drive continuous lead generation. As a result, your marketer hat needs significant "wear" time.

So, what are some actionable things you can do right now to promote your station and attract interested advertisers?

Use your O&O (owned and operated) inventory to promote your ad offerings. Put these on pages that prospective advertisers may visit. Ensure they have a clear CTA (call to action) to prompt the click.

Collaborate with on-air personalities to create spots describing what your station can do for local advertisers. These well-known hosts often have a connection to the community and high trust, delivering a key endorsement for your solutions.

Develop limited-time promotions for ad bundles to promote on all channels – on the air, on your website, via email marketing and through any other paid ad tactics.

Work with your sales team and other stakeholders to improve the basics of marketing, such as updating areas of your website for advertisers, posting about your services on social media and creating more sales enablement content like case studies.

Launch digital campaigns to target businesses with your third-party digital advertising platform. You can build ads for your station just as you do for your customers. Measure their effectiveness, and tweak them to continue driving leads.

Wearing sales and marketing hats is an opportunity to target the right audience at the right time. With more qualified leads, you’ll spend less time cold calling and more time developing relationships and winning deals.