Have you taken a look at your media kits lately? Go ahead — take a look at them today as though you were a business owner or agency buyer seeing them for the first time. After all, your media kit is often the first tangible item that advertisers receive from your sales department. How many times does an out-of-market advertiser or agency say, “Fax or e-mail your media kit”? After an account executive’s initial consultation with a local advertiser, the media kit is frequently a leave-behind. So, imagine its impression. Ask yourself:

1. Does it create a positive first impression?
2. Does it represent who we are as an organization?
3. Is it written in “programming” or “marketing”language? In other words, does the media kit sound like a promo for your listeners, or is it loaded with features and benefits for the advertisers?
4. Is it simple to navigate, and is its information easy to read and understand?
5. Does it look as though it was made by a professional marketing organization (which is what we all should want) or by a high-school student?

Now that you have made an overall assessment of your media kit, let’s discuss six things that all media kits should have — as well as four things they should never include. What should be in your media kit:

1. An overview page with all basic station information.
2. A coverage map page
3. An “on-the-air” page with your programming lineup and a short list of well-known artists (if your format is music).
4. An “About Our Listeners” page. This page gives you the opportunity to tell prospects about your listeners (demographics) and how they can positively affect their business.
5. A “Why Advertise?” page (this is a great page to win over new businesses that are just formulating their advertising strategies).
6. A “Why Radio?” page (which is a great way to show the benefits of radio advertising to potential advertisers who are considering a variety of advertising media).

Four things not to have in your media kit:

1. Biographies and photos of your talent (Unless the personalities are incredibly high profile, business owners just won’t care.)
2. Technical descriptions of your coverage area (The map is enough.)
3. Negative information about other radio stations (The strategy of bashing your competitors will often backfire on you.)

Now that we know the media kit’s inclusions and exclusions, here are four tips to remember when putting it together:

1. Don’t write in paragraphs. Instead, keep all information in bullet points, which are easier to read and much less daunting to busy potential prospects.
2. Filter the number of pages you hand to clients. If you overwhelm them with information, they may decide it’s not worth the time and won’t look at any of your materials.
3. If you e-mail your media kits, send them as PDF documents, rather than Word or PowerPoint documents. If you don’t send PDF documents, your client’s computer may not see the media kit in the same layout you see on your computer.
4. Do not fall into the trap of having a media kit full of “The 7 Sins of PowerPoint Presentations,”such as center spacing; Word art; cheesy clip art; and fancy, colored text.

It is hard enough to close large, multi-station, multi-month deals. If the first piece of sales literature your prospects see is disorganized, looks amateurish, and is hard to grasp, you’re behind the eight ball early in the sales process. Take pride in your media kits. Pay to have them professionally designed and kept up-to-date. We make our money with an intangible product. If we’re to be seen as professional marketers, it’s imperative that the tangible item most often distributed is top-quality.

Written by Gregg Murray , exclusively for Radio Ink Magazine.

You want a new laptop. You are bound and determined to spend less than $1,000. It wasn’t too long ago that such an enterprise would leave you with few choices and a clunker of a system. These days, a $1,000 can net you a modern, dual-core laptop that’s more than capable of serving a variety of mainstream needs. Read more from Crave.net.

Don’t Dismiss The Number One Selling Skill

According to Bill Truax, prospecting is the least used but most important skill in selling. It isn’t always the easiest or most enjoyable task to perform, but it’s the only technique that actually gets your sales reps in front of potential clients, allowing them to use all of their other skills to close a sale.

Companies spend thousands of dollars on programs to develop better selling skills , but virtually nothing on improving a rep’s ability to prospect successfully,” says Truax, president of Trufield Enterprises in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. “And prospecting is so critical to success.” Read more at managesmarter.com.

December will be National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month, National Tie Month, and Safe Toys Month.

Chanukah - December 5-12
Kwanzaa - December 26-Jan 1
World AIDS Day - December 1st
National Pawnbrokers Day - December 6th
Pearl Harbor Day - December 7th
Human Rights Day - December 10th
Poinsettia Day - December 12th
Bill Of Rights Day - December 15th
Wright Brothers Day - December 17th
Winter Begin - December 22nd
Christmas - December 25th
National Whiner’s Day - December 26th
New Year’s Eve - December 31st

Your program director plays a huge role at your radio station. One of those roles should never be to write your media kit. Your media kit is for clients and prospects to learn how your station’s audience can help their business grow. When PD’s write media kits, it comes out as pages about “you” (the station) and little about “them” (your client/prospect).

A page in your media kit for your on-air schedule and a page for your promotions/community involvement is all that is needed in regard to what’s happening on-air.

Your media kits shouldn’t read like programming promo. It’s about your audience, and how they can help clients/prospects. Remember, you are the marketing expert. All of your marketing materials should be produced by you, not the PD.

I came across this post from ManageSmarter.com over the weekend. Thought you’d find it interesting:

No matter the product or service, selling is a tough business. Having a thick skin, a great work ethic and an unflappable “can-do” attitude are among the most crucial traits needed to launch a successful selling career.

But your sales team also needs to know where the potential pitfalls are and how to avoid them. By discussing with team members the primary reasons why salespeople fail, you’re providing a roadmap for success that will help them throughout their careers.

“Whether your team consists of 1,000 salespeople or just one, the simple fact stands: Avalanches roll downhill,” says Keith Rosen, president of Profit Builders and author of Time Management for Sales Professionals and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling. “It starts from the top, and that’s why managers are 100% accountable for the success and failure of their sales teams.” Rosen suggest: Read More

I’m often asked to recommend software that can help Radio sales departments. In the past, we’ve heard of solutions from Wicks, Marketron, Radio 3k, Sales Force, RAB, Smartrate, InaBox, Radio Ink, and others.

But, we want to know what you use (or what have you used in the past)…and give us your opinion or review.

Just leave a reply/comment. We’ll reveal the results in an upcoming etip and RadioSalesBlog post.