One conversation at a time: How a DFM Philly sales professional proved the case for digital media as a worthwhile advertising platform and increased his sales by 140% with one customer.
Customer: Digital First Media, Philadelphia, USA
Challenge: One of Digital First Media’s salespeople was struggling to convince a traditional print advertiser to make the leap to digital. Even though he was a good marketer, the prospect didn’t realize the extent to which his target markets had moved on, and that his biggest audiences were to be found in digital media.
Solution: BuzzBoard enabled Digital First Media to show the prospect how necessary it was to transition from print to digital. The prospect became a customer and after the transition BuzzBoard was able to show him how well his company was doing on the digital platform. It wasn’t long before the company’s ad spend was increased – along with their results – while the salesperson increased his market and earnings.
One conversation at a time: How a DFM Philly sales professional proved the case for digital media as a worthwhile advertising platform and increased his sales by 140% with one customer.
Digital First Media (DFM) is one of the largest providers of digital news and information in the United States. It has 67 million customers and multi-platform products that include web, mobile, tablet and print. DFM Philly serves the Greater Philadelphia market, the 4th largest in the US. Its extensive media offering includes 66 web sites generating 15 million page views and 2.5 million unique visitors monthly (Omniture, 2014).
Marcellus Alexander III is responsible for digital sales at DFM Philly. Amongst the customers Marcellus was trying to win over to his company’s digital platforms was a luxury retirement community which he describes as “well run and a big believer in marketing”. However, they traditionally used print media and didn’t want to move to digital marketing. For the best part of a year Marcellus kept trying to persuade them to make the change; they kept saying no thanks.
Then DFM started using BuzzBoard. Armed with this sales enablement platform, Marcellus approached the retirement company. Such was their belief in the discipline of marketing that they agreed to see him again even though they were convinced that digital media wasn’t for them.
Turning on a light switch
Marcellus takes up the story. “The marketing manager watched as I ran a BuzzBoard web presence analysis of their business against their main competitor. When he saw that his competitor had a higher web presence score (BuzzRank), it was like turning on a light switch.
“Seeing the results on my iPad in real-time, he immediately wanted to improve his company’s presence. I walked him through his BuzzBoard report which clearly showed where improvements could be made. That’s when he decided to make the jump into the digital media world, although he kept their advertising spend the same as when they’d been in print.”</p
Six months later Marcellus made a follow-up visit to measure his customer’s BuzzRank in light of their new digital marketing. Sure enough, the customer had leapt from a rank of 66 to 81, while his main competitor remained static at 74.
From a monthly spend of $2500 to $6000
“Not only did it prove to him that digital was a great new platform and his investment was working, but it really showed me in a professional light and created a lot more trust between us,” Marcellus says. “When I recommended increasing their marketing spend to add more social media presence and new digital advertising, he didn’t hesitate. They went from $2500 to $6000 a month: 140%. That’s huge! BuzzBoard made my case for me, and then proved it.”
This is just one example of the great job BuzzBoard does helping small business owners understand the big things the Internet can do for them. “It helps me find opportunities for my customers to prosper on the web. In the process, I prosper too,” concludes Marcellus.
