By Kevin Gephart

Last week I wrote that persistence is the key to selling out of home.  But relevance is important as well, because persistence without relevance is annoyance.

We’ve lost sight of relevance through all the mass sales training and all the initiatives that come down from corporate.  In my office we would have to take an actual presentation we were going to do for a client and present it in a sales meeting to the sales team prior to going out.  I can’t tell you how many times reps would just go through the standard PowerPoint deck of our marketing materials.  I always got high marks because every single slide had to have a specific, relevant reason for being in the powerpoint even if it was a general marketing slide.  I strongly believe that every slide should be customized, even if just 2-3 words. Change “Out of home reaches 97% of the people in the Twin Cities” to “Out of home reaches 97% of the prospects that XYZ Company wants to reach in the Twin Cities.”   Three or four additional words add relevance.  The optimal is having a custom “reach” stat for their target audience. All of a sudden the prospect is thinking this is relevant.

I hear our new sales reps in the bullpen when they get on the phone and leave cold-call voice messages. Often times they’re not leaving a message with any relevance. You always need a relevant benefit headline. Start the voicemail with that benefit, then identify and explain yourself. You can find out anything about any company in a matter of 10 minutes.  To put that in a one-sentence relevant teaser on a voice mail is very simple and very powerful.

Kevin Gephart spent 35+ years selling advertising including 12 years at Clear Channel Outdoor in Minneapolis.  He writes a column for Billboard Insider on Out of Home Sales.  You can contact Kevin with feedback and questions using the form below.

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