Presented by John Marling, president and founder, Pulse Research, and Sammy Papert, president, Wormhole
Your advertiser’s mindset: They are absolutely overwhelmed by the pandemic and have fallen into a “void of uncertainty.”
Your role: to be a trusted adviser and supporter to the local businesses, providing clarity and insights.
Pulse Research’s role: In less than three weeks, it undertook a COVID-19 shopping survey with more than 23,000 samples. Survey is ongoing. One 11,000-circulation newspaper got 600 responses from just its readers. Collected state data from state press associations and created data sets for regions.
Data consistency. Shopping survey response is projectable across regions. High degree of homogeneity in the data across states and the nation.
COVID-19 revenue recommendation #1: Retention. Be sure that you are holding onto your pre-pandemic business. With every single business you have a relationship with, share the research related to their business.
Teasing the Pulse Teaser. This is one of the Pulse tools to show local shopping interest in a local business. It can give a specific number, such as 5,460 households are interested in buying from a building supply store or lumber yard. The Teaser gives your sales team member a conversation opener based on research on shopping preferences valuable to the business.
Not breaking bad — breaking even. With a Breakeven Calculator, you can show businesses how few customers they need to break even on an advertising campaign. We all know that businesses that continue to advertise in challenging times, when we get out of this — and we will — will get more business.
COVID-19 revenue recommendation #2: Contact every business that has cancelled or cut back on advertising.
Case in point: Consider a furniture store that likely is closed during the pandemic. You can show how many people in the market expect to make a furniture purchase. That’s good news for them. Show them the flyer with the encouraging, positive information on shopping intentions. Share how deep the research can go. It reveals very specific purchases the furniture shopping survey found, such as recliners, dining room tables, etc. And then you can show how few of those customers it would take to break even on an advertising expenditure.
COVID-19 revenue recommendation #3: Contact the businesses that show they are absolutely going to increase business in the next three months. Some examples: wine shops, landscaping, neighborhood grocery stores, lumber yards.
COVID-19 revenue recommendation #4: Put together a spec ad. Show businesses what you can do to support them and get their cash registers ringing.
COVID-19 revenue recommendation #5: Use the Pulse comprehensive training program to help new and seasoned salespeople train for this new sales environment.
Top 25 prospects. The Pulse Business Guide shows the local business sectors that are having an uplift — chiefly home-related businesses — as well as those that are down right now, but that research shows have proven pent-up demand in the local market.
The overarching goal: To be able to be the consultant to help local businesses. Remember: Your local businesses are starved for information.
Survey says! The Pulse survey goes well beyond simply shopping intentions. It includes lifestyle questions such as marital status, intention to vote, recreation preferences, donations or volunteering, etc. It includes business plans, digital metrics and more.
Generating leads. A simple ad telling local businesses you can provide them with data about how many people in their area intend to buy the kind of products they offer. This will help you identify potential advertisers.
How does free sound? Does free work for you? John Marling and Sammy Papert are offering all webinar attendees these aids for identifying prospects and selling during and after the pandemic. Go to pulseresearch.com/support for your complementary:
Want to follow up with the presenters? Contact John Marling at marling@pulseresearch.com and Sammy Papert at sammy@wormholellc.com.
View a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel
View the PowerPoints from this webinar
Additional resources:
COVID-19 Impact Survey results
Using the COVID-19 Impact Survey Findings
View an additional video from Pulse Research:
How to Use Your Pulse COVID-19 Shopping Results
