Media companies are merging, converging and there are now myriad properties and distinct brands operating under one company. Disney Media is home to Walt Disney Television, ESPN, and A&E Networks, under which there are over twenty other sub-brands. Then, consider that each of these brands has a variety of viewing options from traditional cable, online, streaming, podcasts, print, etc. Speaking of print, traditional magazines are gaining more revenue growth from Instagram posts than old school print ads as newsstand sales are declining. AOL, once a pioneering technology company, is now part of Verizon, a phone company. One of the biggest debates today is whether or not Facebook is a content provider and therefore a media company or a social platform. With all of these disruptions there is one constant – advertising sales. They all rely on advertising revenue.
With more choices popping up every day, audiences are more segmented and distracted than ever before, and we don’t see that slowing down anytime soon. That puts more pressure on advertising sales and marketing teams to instill their brand on their advertisers and audiences all while keeping up with the ever shifting landscape.
A presentation management strategy will not only help your ad sales and marketing teams keep up with this shifting landscape, but also help them thrive in spite of it. At its core, presentation management puts a repository of presentation files, or a slide library, visualized and ready to present, at their fingertips. The slide library is complete with sizzling videos, pictures, viewer data and delivery, and general network and programming information.
Following are some practices to consider when implementing a presentation management strategy for your media sales team.
Active Content Structure – All files are presentation-ready, formatted as slides. They are active and ready to produce (as opposed to dormant, hidden somewhere deep inside some network folder). These files should be housed in the company’s slide library and organized by brands, networks, off-shoots and programs. Think of each brand as a story, and each network and program as a chapter. Remember that the chapters are not just limited to plain old PowerPoint slides, but dazzling sizzle reels, live web pages, audio snippets, Instagram feeds, real active samples that are intertwined with audience data, and all other business assets that may be useful in a presentation. Advertisers required both stories and chapters to make their buying decision. In doing so, you are giving your reps comprehensive slide library that they can reference and reconfigure for their individual presentations. They are empowered to talk about any aspect of the company, in general terms or in minute detail, anywhere and time.
Data Updates – One big and tedious task of media sales is to keep ratings data up to date, in a branded, digestible format that a rep can present to a client. Sure you get the Nielsen ratings every morning, even every minute, but some poor soul in the research department needs to format them into a beautifully branded slide. Include live data feeds right onto your branded, formatted PowerPoint slide, and then automate those updates into your library. You not only cut down the time and labor it takes to prepare that material, you are also distributing it directly to your ad sales team. Data is automated, visualized and ready to present.
Slide Updates – When the marketing team updates a slide, whether it’s video, research, information about a merger or even a rebrand, these updates can be pushed into individual rep’s slide libraries. Therefore, they will never make the mistake of presenting old, outdated information to a client, ever. Automatic slide updates keeps a dispersed team of reps’ presentations current.
Interactive Presentations – All media is interactive, and your presentations should be as well. Encourage reps to ditch the one-sided rigid, linear PowerPoint in favor of giving an interactive presentation. Let the presentation follow the conversation. Your on-demand slide library, where all files are already formatted as slides, ready to present, facilitates productive conversations. The rep can present any slide, video, chart or picture, essentially any content, based on what the client is saying and asking for. This allows for a two-way dialogue where the client is participating. And when the client is talking, the rep is learning. And the more the rep learns about their clients’ business, the better his proposal will be to help the advertiser reach his customers, resulting in bigger sales.
Presentation management is a strategy that will help sales reps do their job better while making the entire business more efficient. Organizing content into a visual slide library, with automatic updates and interactivity will give your sales team the dexterity they need to position a media property to an advertiser’s market. Not only that, they can do it quickly and effectively, so they spend less time building decks and more time building relationships with their clients. Presentation management fosters those relationships, which ultimately fosters more sales.