By: Alyssa Hamm

Moving from The Discovery Process to The Pitch, we are working our way through the sales cycle in our Make Yourself Hard to Cancel series.

Once you have set yourself apart in the initial sales process by providing value, learning about the client and establishing a goal, it is time to present your pitch. There are many ways to keep yourself from being cancelled during the pitch, but we will focus on two of them: presenting a multi-channel approach and the upsell.

The Multi-Channel Approach

Pitching a plan that gives the advertiser multiple ways to reach an audience can really help you stand out from your competitors—especially if you highlight flexibility.

An audience is hard to cancel because those are potential customers, and lucky for you, there is more than one way to reach an audience. Many advertisers think the only way to find a specific audience (or the best way to do it) is with third-party data. While third-party data can help with finding the right person, there are other methods that can prove to be even more successful. By taking a step back to think about their target in terms of location, context or repeat visitors, you can pitch additional tactics in the strategy.

Perhaps the most overlooked tactic when narrowing down to a specific audience is run of network. Rather than using third-party data to pre-select who you think will engage with your advertiser’s brand, this tactic uses the goal you established in planning to find performance. Once you have a variety of ways of reaching their potential consumer, you can set yourself apart by emphasizing campaign flexibility. Show how you can use real-time data to make decisions on which targeting methods are driving the most success. This is where the goal you identified in the discovery process becomes so important, as the measurable goal essentially informs the buyer of the strategy. Because we are hitting our audience with multiple tactics, we can confidently use the one driving the most success which can give you a leg up on the competition who is simply trying to fulfill impressions.

Beyond a variety of programmatic tactics, you can also use other channels to find the advertiser’s audience. Depending on your capabilities, using social, search and email can be good ways to expand the media plan. The more channels you work on for an advertiser, the deeper the partnership. It is hard to cancel a comprehensive media plan. Not only can you optimize more efficiently, but you can help to make a bigger impact on their business and build much more informed plans in the future. This leads to better performance for the advertiser…and makes it almost impossible for them to cancel your partnership.

So, how do you get to a place where you have multiple channels and tactics? It’s all about the upsell…

The Upsell

The goal of all salespeople is to upsell their clients, and the best way to do this is with options and choice. When you give the advertiser options on “what could be” and allow them to choose their own advertising adventure, it builds excitement and accountability to your plan. It is harder for them to cancel when they have a say in the strategy. The pitch should always include the plan and budget level they asked to see.

Along with that, I would suggest adding one or two additional “upsell” plans. You spent the time learning about the client, their audience and their goals, so show off a little and present them with your ideal media plan. Include different channels and tactics and show how they all work together to find audiences in different ways while still all working toward the same goal.

In summary, the key selling point to a multi-channel or tactic plan is that all of it will sit with you and your team. You will have a broad understanding of how the different pieces work together to drive success, and your buyer will be able to make changes quickly across any aspect of your plan if needed.

At the end of the day, you are pitching a commodity. There are other sellers who can sell what you have, so do what you can do stand out. Focus in on how you can drive success with a variety of targeting methods and flexibility of budget. Give them options based on your expert opinion so they can have a say in the approach too. Remember: pitching to the goal and driving campaign success will make you hard to cancel. Plenty of advertisers have cancelled their impressions, but very few cancel proven success.