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.

Eric Grover of the Milwaukee Sentinel had a wine and liquor store whose owners were pretty old school when it came to advertising. Although set in their ways, the owners were open to new ideas if presented with the right information. They had been pitched digital campaigns before but were never convinced. 

While the owners do stay a step ahead of their competitors with branding campaigns, Grover knew they were missing key demographics, so he gave it a shot. “I featured AdMall research showing the demographics surrounding their business, which showed that they were missing key age and income groups,” Grover said. The winning piece of information was the sales zone profile which showed the demographics of people living within a ten-​mile radius of the store. When Grover asked them  how they were reaching this younger audience, which comprises such a large percentage of the neighborhood, they were sold! Grover’s spirits were lifted. 

They jumped on board immediately for nearly six-​thousand dollars over two months. “As a heavy print client, our digital solution was primarily aimed at a young professional audience,” Grover added.  He sold them section front push-​down digital ads on jsonline​.com as well as geo-​fenced audience extension ads. The click-​thru rate on the campaign was a big success and motivated them to make an increased digital buy shortly thereafter. Grover, who had only been with the Journal Sentinel fourteen months at the time of this win, stated “I honestly say the insights I took away from AdMall led directly to this win.”

Congratulations to Eric, along with the other Sell Smarter Award recipients: Erica Costa with Excelerate Digital, Jana Nun with Cox Media, Brian Burgess of KYTX TV, Sharon Gillis at WSBT TV, and Steven Leister with Daily Item.