THE BEST SALES AID

When selling advertising for a playbill, what is the best sales aid to use? We are asked quite frequently how we are able to sell so much advertising and what sales aids we use to sell advertising into the playbill. There are (2) sales aids that are key to a successful sales campaign. The first is what we refer to as the “fast facts” sheet. There is nothing like the excitement with announcement of the new Season. People anticipate this and the line-up should be a talking point every time with prospects. We typically “drill down” the Season line-up into a one page piece that showcases the highlights of the Season. (It is important that this piece is ONE PAGE.) I know that we see pages and pages of content in a Season brochure, but we have to remember that our goal is to sell advertising, not tickets. We have found that inundating a prospective advertiser with too much information can result in overload and failure.  

This one page piece should also contain the following:

1. The Venues: Do not always assume that everyone knows where you perform. There are some organizations that we sell for that perform in (8) different venues in (4) different cities!!! This is VERY important as it will explain to a prospective advertiser where their marketing message will be seen. Just last week I was talking with a major hotel in Albany, NY. (for the Albany Symphony) The manager asked where the ASO performs. There were (3) venues. One was in Albany the other 2 were actually in Troy, NY. The Manager was not familiar with one of the venues in Troy. The venue was EMPAC.  (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center). Of the three venues this was the newest, most prestigious and state of the art facility.
2. Number of performances for the Season as well as the dates for the events. (NOT DISTRIBUTION) Including this information into the sales aid can be impressive. Including the dates is key information. Once again, don’t assume that everyone knows when your Season begins and ends.
3. Imagery and COLOR.----- 98% of the time when one asks for rates for advertising from a performing arts group, it will look EXACTLY THE SAME. Typically include: distribution, rates by size, and of course the ad dimensions. (The dimensions will typically be a visual of the actual ad size with the dimensions.) It is always the same. We like to add flair. I’ll use the example of the Albany Symphony again. Yo-Yo Ma is the feature of the Season, so we have an image of Yo-Yo emblazoned on our fast facts page.  Since we email, we use a PDF of the one page “fast facts” sheet that always uses color.   
4. Some general demographic information about the audience. Once again, don't go overboard with facts and figures. We have experimented with many different formats and have found that less is more. If one asks for more specifics, you can always accommodate with necessary stats.
5. DON’T include rates on your “fast facts” sheet. As a sales rep, you ought not send over a list of rates and sizes and allow the prospect to decide what they should purchase. As a sales rep we want to control the recommendation. Here is an example. If you were speaking with the XYZ wealth management firm about placing an ad in the playbill, and we know that the ABC wealth management firm was already in the playbill with a half page ad. The recommendation for your prospective would have to be a full page. The logic: A quarter page ad, would be too small and not be effective.

In addition to the “fast facts” sheet, the other most important sales aid is the actual program book. Now we know that it is not practical or cost effective to mail out the playbill to every prospect. The answer is to digitize the playbill. We are able to email a digitized, page turn for all of our prospective advertisers. The importance of showing the current playbill is so the prospective advertiser is able to see the advertisers. 

Hope this is helpful....