eMedia Sales Support and Online Tradeshows – Some Q&A

It’s been incredibly busy recently so I’ve been a little negligent at posting to my blog. But during this time, I’ve had the opportunity to converse via email with several friends, media execs, and P.E. firms about various topics. My next couple posts will be excerpts from those conversations. I thought you might find the dialog interesting and, yes, I did get permission to post these. (I always consider all non-public posted conversations confidential.) Enjoy!

Question: You had mentioned there’s a person at the brand level who helps sell emedia programs? Is that a salesperson? Or more of a marketing/sales assist? Are they double-commissioned with the sales folk? And their sole focus is emedia sales & marketing? What is the title of that position?

Answer: There are a variety of ways that you can organize a sales team for online media, but the position you are talking about is more of an account exec (or even call it a sales engineer) who is the champion for emedia sales within the group, helps support the territory reps, and often works some accounts themselves. They are there to help with the promotion of online media to advertisers, get on the phone rep and their clients to discuss emedia programs, help with RFPs (not do them FOR the rep, but help the rep with questions they cannot answer and as an extra set of eyes), and even go to shows to meet clients with the rep or go on a sales call if it’s a big potential sale and there is a need for extra firepower. Commission structures will vary depending on your specific sales force structure, market conditions, and other factors. Sometimes double commissioning helps get things going, but you don’t want to go that way for the long-term. Doing a commission split or an override also works in some situations. Their sole focus is indeed emedia sales, although I have seen it combined sometimes with classified sales if there is not enough revenue to justify. I have also seen it combined with emedia ad operations (trafficking, reporting, inventory mgmt) which I think may be the best way to go initially.

Question: What’s your opinion of these online expositions, a la Unisfair. Good, bad? Worth the effort?

Answer: I was never a fan of online tradeshows / conferences, but my tune has changed recently. Previous applications were cheesy, hard-to-use, and tried to emulate the in-person feel too much. The newer interfaces, however, do a much better job of using the web as the web should be used. They still retain elements of the tradeshow / conference feel in their interface, but now realize that the product is actually a web site and don’t take the theme too far. The other key is making it a true event (2-3 days max) rather than an on-going perpetual event. This plays off the urgency factor for both sponsors and attendees — they realize that they have to commit and/or attend or they’ll miss out. I have personally worked with Unisfair and really like their product. They do a good job of keeping it simple, training/assisting the publisher, sales team, and sponsors, and have some smart programs to help boost attendance at the actual event. I’ve also heard good things about iCongo, but haven’t worked with them personally yet.

Have a specific question you’d like to ask? Send me an email by going to my contact page.