By Michelle Ackerman, CRM product manager, Brainworks
Greetings from my home office in Lakewood, Colorado. Like many of you, I am working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. With 25 years of sales leadership experience in the media industry, I understand trying to keep as much revenue as possible right now is the most important thing to you.
This quote by Henry Ford — “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” — really inspired me to share some innovative ways to generate revenue to share with your advertisers during a time where most have been doing a dead-stop on all advertising:
- Home Improvement: I attended a webinar hosted by America’s Newspapers and Second Street where they mentioned quite a few categories of business that should be advertising right now. One in particular really “hit home” with me: Home improvement. I looked out the front door of my home office and saw this going on in my own neighborhood:
- A brand new driveway and RV pad going in at my next door neighbor’s home.
- Outside home painting job in progress at the house across the street.
- A new garage door being installed two houses down.
- Local nursery trucks have been seen several times driving up and down my block delivering anything from mulch to spring plants.
- Celebrating Graduates: Many of our high school seniors won’t have a traditional graduation this year but that shouldn’t stop the celebration!
- One of our customers is using our self-serve (web order entry) tool to capture photos, information and well wishes from friends and family. They will publish these in a special print publication and online.
- They will be promoting on local TV and radio, in addition to their own publications.
- Political Advertising: I’ve heard that many of you are already targeting candidates for this year’s election. I am pretty certain that is one event that won’t be cancelled and candidates have money to spend! However rallies and town halls may be cancelled, so they will need other options (They need you!) Politics is local and who serves the local community better than you? Be sure to get in front of them before your competitors. (And they pay cash in advance!) Find some great political advertising ideas from this webinar hosted by America's Newspapers and John Kimball.
- Restaurants: They need us now more than ever. Have you created a print or online directory of restaurants offering delivery and pickup? What about non-traditional food outlets looking for new ways to sell inventory:
- Butcher shops.
- Farm to Table operations.
- Farmers and growers that usually depend on local farmer’s markets, commercial bakeries.
- Marketing Stimulus Program for Local Business: Several newspaper companies are implementing a marketing grant/local business stimulus program. They are providing matching funds to advertisers who qualify. Read about a couple of examples here:
I hope these revenue-generating ideas are helpful at a time when advertisers are looking to you more than ever to help them. We're all in this together. Connect with me directly at MAckerman@brainworks.com to hear about more revenue-generating ideas or other CRM solutions.
