Hi. I’m Doug Lessells. On behalf of everyone at SalesFuel, we welcome you to this month’s featured Sell SMARTER Award — where we honor excellence in media sales.

Modesto Bee Account Manager Juanita Toth has had a long career of selling media — over twenty-​five years. She’s seen the tipping point move from print to digital — and she’s had to adapt her own set of skills from being that "old fashioned print girl" to the "expert digital consultant." Because of that, she was able to use her digital expertise with a grocery store chain in her market that only ran print advertising.

The store is a traditional, neighborhood grocery market and they don’t offer club type savings — as they brand themselves with low prices every day. The owners have always stuck to what they know, which was full page, color print ads, previewing sale items of the week. They just didn't have the knowledge of digital advertising to move from print to a very digital-​focused campaign.

Toth knew they were missing out by not considering digital opportunities. So, she turned to her internal client success team who pulls data from multiple resources to help sales. They looked to AdMall, pulling a Digital Audience and a Local Account Intelligence report to support her proposal of digital solutions. After doing a thorough analysis of the account, Toth was able to find a way to give them their traditional print buy and provide digital solutions that have proven successful within the grocery vertical.

Toth noted, “We were able to secure $36,000 of digital revenue from the client, which helped to reduce his print cost. We’ll generate a better website for his business, manage his social media and utilize mobile tactics for coupons and to reach a targeted millennial audience.”

“They still run their market print ads, but now they also have a robust audience extension campaign that includes, geo-​fencing, retargeting and we’re utilizing our local owned and operated website for pre-​roll video which has a large amount of engagement.” The pre-​roll video has a CTR of .78% and a completion rate of thirty-​four point fifty-​five percent. “These numbers are unheard of,” Toth reports. And the final contract is in excess of a $114,000 of new digital revenue with a total contract of over a $190,000!

Congratulations to Juanita, along with the other Sell Smarter Award recipients:

• Jed Glaze with Cox Media
• Eric Grover with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Lindsay Ortiz at The Desert Sun
• Melissa Hubbard with Times Herald

To find out how YOU can qualify for a Sell Smarter Award, visit SalesFuel​.com/​SSA.