Now is the time to prospect for Q4 2024 to pursue, sell, and post by 4Q.

Fourth quarter total ad spend is 23% greater, on average, than the rest of the year. It’s a make-or-break time.  Right now advertisers are tweaking their ad plans, evaluating if they’ll meet their 2024 goals. It can be a “catch-up” time for your prospects and you! If advertisers/prospects are doing the same ad spend hoping for different results, you can bring sanity to their ad plan with fresh ideas.

A key to selling more 00H faster is planning for a sufficient prospecting/sales cycle for Q4.  Don’t waste valuable, limited sales time pursuing new business with too short of a sales cycle.  It’s unfortunate that management (for their own purposes) sometimes want reps to chase sales too close to posting.

To avoid the usual January sales slump, begin right now to include an attractive January offer to extend advertisers’ proposed plans into January. Possibly only a few will accept the offer but it will help you sell more faster into January.

The most immediate, high-value prospects will be triggered by a “precipitating event”.(An unforeseen event that triggers collective action or marks a critical turning point causing an advertiser to pivot). You can only capitalize on these events if you are a student of your marketplace. The fourth quarter is likely rife with precipitating events; election fallout, potentially lower interest rates, potential public health concerns, weather disasters, etc.

Record political advertising is happening now and predicted to continue (If you’d like my FREE playbook on selling political advertising, please message me at: KevinJGephart@gmail.com). Be ready to jump in at a moment’s notice to save a local advertiser who has had their ads bumped by local broadcast media.  You’ll be the hero and likely gain a long-term client.

Caveat: Don’t spend more than 15% of your time pursuing political advertising this year. This can be great low hanging fruit, but is limited, one-time only sales. The same amount of time put into a general advertiser prospect will reap more immediate and long-term benefits.

The National Retail Federation reports Halloween spending for 2024 will be up 20% over the record from two years ago. The average Halloween household spend is projected to be $108 this year. Like OOH advertising itself, Halloween includes every demographic. The Harris poll documents it’s the second largest commercial holiday and the third most popular holiday behind Christmas and Thanksgiving (Having all three in Q4 really drives ad spend).

(Competitive note) Most radio stations don’t have their regular programming during the two most critical 4Q weeks; Thanksgiving week and Christmas week. Using guest hosts, and/or “best of shows”, negatively affects the advertiser results during those critical sales weeks. OOH’s audience doesn’t waiver!

Small Business Saturday is Saturday, November 30, sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday each year.  It’s a day devoted to attracting consumers to shop at their local brick and mortar businesses. The Small Business Administration projects in 2024 consumers will spend $20 billion on Small Business Saturday.  More shoppers (61%) say they will shop on Small Business Saturday than will shop on Black Friday (56%).

Here is a comprehensive list of ad categories to sell more faster in Q4. Identify the top 10 categories from this list for your individual marketplace. Determine the top 3 to 5 advertisers within each category. You now have a fourth-quarter prospecting playbook to finish the year strong. For rationale of why these categories are hot and/or some actionable ideas for how to approach them, contact me at kevinjgephart@gmail.com.

My OOH Sales Academy has SOLD OUT! The sales reps attending are gaining an important competitive advantage in their marketplace. Some are even paying their own way!! Thanks to all who are joining us. If you’d like be kept informed about future OOH Sales Academy sessions email me at KevinJGephart@gmail.com

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