HVAC Client Heats Up With $56,000 Ad Buy

BY Adam Ambro
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Challenge: Nail the “one chance a year” sales pitch 

Sharon Gillis is a savvy industry veteran. And once a year, the Digital Marketing Director for WSBT-​TV has the chance to present to a local HVAC advertiser and earn their business. If the pitch fails to impress, you lose your shot at a making a sale for an entire year. In other words, you only get one chance. To a less experienced salesperson, this challenge would sound quite daunting. But for Gillis, with 20 years of media sales experience and four years’ experience using AdMall, the potential sale was too good to pass up. The challenge was worth taking.

Solution: Sell them on research, not packages

To get started, Gillis turned once again to AdMall, using AudienceSCAN research to assist her pitch.

With the audience data, I present this to the client as, ‘This is what our research is showing us for your category. Is this accurate for your company?’” said Gillis. “This is a much better conversation than just asking the client to describe his current customers because most aren’t paying that much attention to this type of detail.” 

It was this use of hard facts that sealed the deal. According to Gillis, she just needed to put together an annual advertising proposal that made sense and was based on research rather than the “packages” presented by most media reps.

The HVAC company was sold on the idea. Not only did they purchase YouTube targeted video advertising and Facebook audience targeted advertising, they also signed up for using video ads and homepage takeovers on WSBT’s website. 

Result: Another successful sale based off AdMall’s AudienceSCAN research

While the sales campaign is still too recent to get a full ROI on the $56,000 closing amount, Gillis did report that the client has seen “a lot of action” from both their Facebook and YouTube ads. It just goes to show that, when it comes to sales, people demand proof, and data matters. As Gillis put it:

Since our digital advertising is most effective when targeted to the most likely audience to purchase the client’s product, it’s critical we know exactly who to target. With the ‘Where have you seen/​heard an ad in the past 12 months that led you to take action?’ data, I use that to back up my recommendations on what type of advertising I’m recommending to the client."


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