Challenge: A funeral home in a difficult location

Chris Scott, an account executive with Advance Local, is new to media sales, having only been selling for a little over a year. After he started, he began chasing a local funeral home for their business.

“I was chasing this account for a very long time,” said Scott. “The [funeral home] is located at the southern tip of the island, so it is hard for them to generate business from North Shore families. They were heavily relying on their neighborhood and referrals but found it to be important to have a presence across the entire island. Eventually, my persistence earned me a meeting with the owner. I opened the meeting by saying, ‘I want to help you make smart decisions with your marketing budget.’”

Solution: AdMall’s “Know Their Customer” Data

While Scott may be new to media sales, he also has been using AdMall since day one. He knew that the research he could find before his meeting with the funeral home would lead to closing the sale.

“AdMall gave me the local market research I needed to appear as an expert who knew the right strategies for this client,” said Scott. “After listing the information I studied from AdMall, the advertiser trusted me to make all of the creative decisions and recommendations.”

“I mentioned from the AdMall’s [local account intelligence] report the top solutions that customers considered to be the most impactful, and that closed him [the funeral home] on a digital and print sale. He didn't have the confidence prior to the meeting that a local news publication still had as much value to advertisers. He was just focused on television commercials. I told him we can take the television commercials and run them as video ads on our website, and he can run newspaper ads in the Sunday paper's obituary section.” 

Result: A 15-​month contract

After Scott met with the funeral home and gave them his pitch, they bought right in.

“He loved [my pitch] and signed a 15-​month program totaling $14,250 in revenue,” said Scott.

Scott wants other reps to know they don’t have to spend much time to get used to AdMall.

“Once I played around with it for a month, I was able to understand all of the value,” said Scott. “All of the content is useful because on the research reports, almost everything is a reason to talk to the prospect. I’ve been using AdMall since I started working at Advance Local, and my favorite part is ‘top factors clients consider,’ average value for a new customer and most impactful advertising solutions,” said Scott.

“It’s never a bad idea to sharpen your mind. Your mind is your tool used to close new business. Potential clients want to work with someone they can trust who put in the work for them and did research they can clearly communicate back. AdMall helps you be a smarter marketing consultant, plain and simple.”

AdMall’s Local Account Intelligence Report is available for over 400+ business types and provides a myriad of research from the local, state and national level. It is the baseline report a rep should run before their first sales call that will put them on a level playing field with a potential client.

Everything from market demographics, consumer spending, marketing/​budget figures, top products sold, industry challenges and opportunities, and more can be found in this report. If you’d like to learn more about the Local Account Intelligence Report, feel free to register for the next AdMall 101 webinar HERE! If you’re not currently an AdMall subscriber, click here for a free demo.