Welcome! Introduction Best Accounts to Choose Common Mistakes Gathering Info Securing Artwork Determining Ad Size Attention Grabber Benefit Headline Copy Other Elements Producing the Ad The fastest way to increase sales! Participate in this award-winning, newspaper-specific ad sales course on-site or in a Webinar.  • Get past upfront stalls and objections without any pushing  • Make the account believe he really needs you  • Get better information from your prosepct  • Develop quick ad strategies that work the very first time  • Eliminate size, frequency, content, cost and most other objections before they ever arise  • Get dramatic responses for all kinds of advertisers  • Never have to push an advertiser to run again click here

So now you've found some good prospects for a spec ad and have resisted the temptation of just giving it to an artist and saying "give this a new look."

Your spec ad is going to be an ad strategy that also happens to look good, based on solid information.

So, stop into the prospect's place of business, introduce yourself, and make it clear you're not there to sell them advertising. Instead, explain that you're there simply to find out more about their business, competition, and target customers.

Also tell them that after learning more about them you'll go back to the office, think about it, and if you decide you can help them, you'll come back with a recommendation.

The recommendation will most likely include reasons why your newspaper will reach the right types of readers in the right places as well as an ad. Then, if they'd like to run the ad, great. If not, that's ok, too.

I get into more detail on the first sales call later in this course, but the idea is to keep their resistance low by not attempting to sell them and get some good information.

These questions fall into three basic categories: What products or services do you sell? Who do you compete with? Who are you trying to sell to?

You are on a mission and your goal is to find out anything and everything about your prospect's business.

Business, Products, and Services
When gathering information about the business, it's important to find out what products or services they sell, what's special about their products or services (are they unique or hard to find, for example), how much do they charge, what's the average sale when a customer buys, do they have any brochures or stories that have been written about them in the past, or any ads they've run previously that have worked or haven't–anything and everything about their business you can get your hands on.

Competition
You'll need to ask your prospect who their competitors are and why should people come to them rather than those competitors. What are their competitors charging for similar products? Where are they advertising? How successful are they? You should try to get your hands on any ads their successful competitors are running to see what they're doing.

It's also important to make sure that you get the advertiser to tell you who their true competitors are. For example, a small furniture store might only list other small furniture stores as competition, and may forget about the big chain stores. So, if most people are going to the big chain furniture stores instead of his local furniture store, then the chain store would be the main competitor. In that case, see what the chains are doing in their ads. After all, they've probably figured out why people buy from one store rather than another.

Target customers
Ask the advertiser about his target customers. Questions such as: Why do your target customers buy the product from one place rather than another? Is it the prices? Is it the service? At what income level are your target customers? How old are they? Knowing as much as you can about who your ad is trying to attract will help when we come to the next step: creating the strategy.

What not to ask
Don't ask the advertiser, "what would you like in your ad?" That's for two reasons. The first is that the account hasn't agreed to run yet, and second, what he wants the ad to look like might not turn out to be the best for his business.

As I mentioned before, they all have their own, often faulty, theories on what works in advertising. If they knew what was best to do in their ad they'd be doing it already.

The same goes for the question: "How big would you like to run?" The answers you'll get will probably range from "I don't want to run at all" to "the smallest ad I can possibly run." If they've been running an ineffective ad, then they haven't been seeing the return they should, which means they're probably scaling back their budget, spending less than they should.

Next: Securing artwork