When you sell print advertising, you're not only competing with other print advertising outlets in your area---you're also competing with other kinds of media such as radio and television. Your presentation needs to be well-thought-out: You need to know your prospect before you make the sales call, and you need to have compelling reasons why the prospect should go with print advertising over the other kinds of media advertising available.
Internet Add-on
One of the values of print media is the ability to take the same ad that appears in print and place it on the Internet as well. You can add great value to your print media offering if you team up your print advertising offering with an additional Internet presence.
The interactive nature of the Internet allows you to offer value to your print copy that the other advertising mediums don't offer. Your business customers can create real-time feedback forms that can be teamed up with the print advertising to gauge the effectiveness of the campaign. Not only does your client benefit from the customer response, but you'll be able to better tailor your offering to help the client's advertising be more effective.
Research First
Print advertising research involves not only trying to determine what size ad would be best for your client, but also trying to determine where the best place on the page would be for the ad to appear. Research your client before you set out to make your first call so that you understand what their business is; you can have examples of other print advertising the client has done in the past to reference so you can understand better what the client would want to get out of the advertising. When you're competing against so many other advertising mediums (as you are with print advertising), it's best to be as prepared as possible.
Prepare Your Case
There's a permanent nature to print advertising that doesn't exist with radio and television. When a print advertisement is published, it's there for good. Archived newspapers will carry the ad for a long time, and that value needs to be translated to your clients. Put together a package explaining the size of your audience, along with a demographic that applies directly to your client. Let your client know how well you can target the people they're trying to reach---let them see the numbers for themselves.
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