Friday, May 29, 2009

Lunch Duty Rap - Week 2, War of the Gift Shops

It never fails that what ultimately saves my magazines is the ever-present and vicious competition among local consignment shops in Tifton.

It was drilled into me over and over in my economics classes that competition is good for local economies. Of course, there's all kinds of data to prove it. I've always understood it from a consumer's point of view. More competition means better prices for consumers and less chance of the formation of monopolizing and price-controlling businesses. But I never thought about how beneficial competition is for local advertising, as well.

Tifton has an abundance of small consignment stores, or gift shops, spread throughout the area. They specialize in Vera Bradley, host bridal registries and sell myriad interior decorating essentials. I can think of at least six stores off the top of my head, but I know there are many, many more. Currently, all six of those stores advertise with me and continue to advertise. Know why? They all secretly, or not-so-secretly, want to best each other.

When I started working on the magazines, only three of the shops advertised with me. As an experiment, I presented my magazines to another store and slyly mentioned the fact that some of the other shops were advertising with me. Immediately, the shop bought the back page to two of my magazines, our most expensive positions. Score one for Kelly.

Today, I visited another gift shop and the owner agreed to start advertising and get in on the action, also giving me the lowdown on all of the other shops she's in competition with, a.k.a. ammunition for future sales.

So without the graphs and microeconomic equations, I can personally vouch for the fact that competition is good not only for consumers but also for advertising. And we need all the economic stimuli we can get, even if it means getting my hands a little dirty in some small-town drama.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Technology worth tinkering with

Some crazy new stuff you should check out:

Bing, Microsoft's new search engine that's being launched on June 3.

Google Wave, a marriage between Gmail and Google Talk. Its revolutionary attributes include live chat in which you can see the other person typing character by character as well as an all-in-one place for viewing documents, pictures, emails, chats and more without delving into archives or extra screens. Unfortunately, Google Wave won't be available until later this year.

Woya, a consumer's saving grace when it comes to online purchases.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Credit card calamity

Today the U.S. House passed a bill that will enact major changes in the way consumers interact with their credit cards and credit card companies.

The Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights Act of 2009 was passed yesterday by the Senate, so now it only awaits presidential approval before becoming law.

Passage of the bill is consumer friendly in that it radically changes the way credit card companies are allowed to treat their customers, including extending the period of time between the postage of a bill and its actual due date. This will eliminate the ability of credit card companies to post a bill 10 days before its due with the goal of increasing the chance of charging customers late fees.

However, the bill also prohibits people under age 21 from obtaining a credit card without cosigning with a parent. While the idea is to nobly prevent credit card companies from bullying the college-aged crowd, it will ultimately harm young people in the future by stunting their ability to build credit.

I've been steadily building credit since I graduated from high school. I would buy something small with my credit card, pay it off, then start the cycle again the next month. Within a few years, I've built up thousands of dollars worth of credit, I have two credit cards, I've got a great credit score and I've learned to be responsible in the way that I handle credit.

Credit cards shouldn't be your enemy or your vice; they're your friends! They can get you out of a tight spot, give you a chance to treat yourself and help you become more responsible with your finances. You just have to learn to use them correctly. And the sooner young people learn to do that, the better.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Good news and bad news for newspapers

With real estate taking a nose dive and the automotive industry not far behind, it's no wonder newspaper advertising numbers are down more than ever.

Reflections of a Newsosaur's post on the effects of car dealerships' closings on local advertising rings eerily true with my own newspaper.

When I started at the Gazette about a month ago, there were grumblings from all the reps about being gold against such big numbers from last year's sales. But the one who grumbled the least was actually the one who'd lost the most.

This rep had been in control of all real estate advertising in addition to her local territory. When I looked at the sales sheet, I couldn't believe my eyes. She sold tens of thousands of dollars in real estate each month last year. Now, she's pulling around $1,000, or $2,000 in a good month. That means she won't be making her goals for at least a year and maybe more if real estate keeps falling. And you won't ever hear her complain about it.

Not to mention that that's hundreds of thousands of dollars lost to the newspaper itself. And if automotive dealers go the way of real estate, then we're in big trouble.

But the good news for newspapers, according to Reflections of a Newsosaur, is that broadcast news is set to take a bigger hit in automotive advertising losses than print news.

Think about all of the car dealership ads that you see on TV. Hometown ads with all kinds of graphics and children and little jingles. Most of those could disappear, and without the campaign ads that flooded TVs last year and lined the broadcast industry's pockets, broadcast news is in for a big hit this year.

While that's good news for newspapers, I'm a firm believer that we're all in this together. If it's a hit to broadcast news, it's a hit to the journalism industry itself. And whether we're newspapers, radio, broadcast or online, that means we're all going to have to work a little bit harder to make things work.

Wolfram Alpha - a twisted Jeopardy?

The buzz on the street today is Wolfram Alpha, the new "computational knowledge engine."

Basically, ask a question and Wolfram Alpha can answer it faster than you can find it on Wikipedia or Google. The idea is that all it takes is one click of your mouse to find an answer versus two or three clicks and maybe some scrolling. Typical questions for Wolfram Alpha usually deal with calculations, factoids, locations, dates, stocks and formulas.

I tried my birthday:




And as with any new program, there are lots of fun little Q&A easter eggs embedded in the system.

For example, enter "To be or not to be?" and get "...that is the question."

Or, my personal favorite:



For more geeky laughs, try Mashable's Top 10 Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs and 10 Even Better Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lunch Duty Rap - Week 1

Since I'm the newbie, I have "lunch duty" on Fridays. This means that every Friday, I have be in the office covering for the other reps while they're at lunch from 12 to 1. Today, all the reps are eating Mexican food, and I get to sit here for an hour to answer phones and help customers who come in. Except that in Tifton, everyone goes to lunch from 12 to 1, so no one ever calls or comes in.

Well, I've hereby decided that every Friday, I'm going to keep myself busy by posting a Lunch Duty Rap about something I've learned during the week or something I read that day or whatever I deem important at the time.

This week, I'm attacking the effectiveness of different selling tactics.

I've been actively selling advertising for three weeks, and I've officially tackled an entire magazine on my own. A feat in itself! But I've also quickly learned some valuable things about sales and the best ways to get an exuberant "yes" out of people. I've been e-mailing, phoning and visiting my customers like crazy, yet not all of these three strategies get good responses. Here's the scoop.

E-mail

Obviously the easiest option. Just plug in an email address, write out your sales pitch, suck up a little bit, attach a rate card and you're good to go, right?

Wrooong. I detest e-mailing as an option. With e-mail, people can ignore you, delete your e-mails, never e-mail you back, and then you're left with a bunch of holes in your publication that you can't fill because you've been waiting on responses from people for a month. Frustrating.

However, my ad director did introduce me to a wonderful tool to make e-mail response a little more effective. Sometimes e-mail is necessary if the customer lives outside of the immediate area or is too busy during the day to chat or visit. For those unfortunate times, a "read receipt" is your saving grace. When you know that your customer has read your email, and your customer knows that you know, you find yourself in a priceless position of power.

Phone

Also easy, as long as you don't have a phone phobia (which I'm ashamed to say I've had on occasion). So just call up your customers, give them the scoop, get the sale and move on, right?

Sometimes. Actually, the phone is a lot more effective than I thought it'd be. I've made lots of sales just by calling someone up and talking to them for a while.

However, there are times when it's not such a great option. There are two cases in particular: when you're dealing with gate keepers and the absence of face-to-face communication.

Gate Keepers

"Good morning! This is Kelly with the Gazette, how are you?"
"Err, fine..."
"Is Mr. So-and-So available?"
"Ummm no... he's... uh... he's busy right now... Can I take a message?"

Chances are, that message is never going to reach the desk of who you want to talk to. "Gate keepers" are the office managers and administrative assistants who hold the keys to the person you're trying to sweet talk. The trick? Kill them with kindness. Eventually, maybe they'll start to like you and at least give you his voicemail.

Face-to-Face Communication

Never underestimate the importance of communicating with someone in person. Whether it's in your own personal relationships or professional ones, it's always harder for people to turn you down to your face. End of story.

Sales calls

Last but not least, sales calls - the most efficient means of effectively conveying exactly what you want your customer to know and getting good results. Despite the name, a sales call isn't a "call" at all. It's simply paying a visit - in person - to your customer.

Smiling, chatting, showing them examples of products, actively listening to them - these are all things that your customers will appreciate and respect, most of the time. And sales calls are my personal favorite because they get me out of the office and out into the community to talk to people and learn new things.

Friday, May 1, 2009

News of the day

News of the day:

People who read news online usually read it for 53 minutes each week. That's up from 41 minutes in 2007. Sell that one to advertisers.

Also, Disney has officially partnered up with Hulu, further influencing the future of online TV. Now, ABC shows - Lost and Grey's Anatomy, etc. - will join the lineup alongside NBC and other providers. And hopefully this means we get The Little Mermaid, too!