RhizaWhitepaper_ANewVision

A New Vision for Media Ad Sales

Becoming the Data Savvy Partner that Leading Brands Need

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Table of Contents

2 Introduction: A New Era in Media Advertising
3 Part I: Understanding the Plight of the Modern CMO
6 Part II: Reframing the Role of Media Ad Sales
8 Part III: From Transactional Selling to Data Savvy Partner
12 Conclusion: Leading Media Ad Sales
13 Appendix: The Data Self-Assessment

rhiza.com | [email protected] | 412-488-0600

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A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Introduction: A New Era in Media Advertising

If you run a media ad sales team, you know the enormous challenge of keeping up with the
ever-expanding options in advertising. There are traditional channels like television, direct
mail, billboards and print magazines, plus the evolving lineup of digital options like social
media, paid search, pay-per-click, display ads, programmatic buys — the list
goes on. What you may not realize, however, is that a significant payoff
awaits those ad sales teams willing to rise to the challenge and help
marketers find their way in this fast-changing field.

Today’s marketers invest heavily in advertising. Spending over $300
billion on digital and TV advertising globally in 2015, they are projected
to increase that spending to over $450 billion by 2019, according
to a report by McKinsey. Now, with these great budgets comes great
expectations to make every dollar count. Tracking and measuring ROI
has become a marketer’s greatest responsibility and challenge —yet
often they lack the time and resources to do this effectively.

This new role for marketers, in turn, opens up a unique opportunity for
your sales team: step in and guide marketers in measuring outcomes and
investing money in ways that pay off.

With so many new and emerging advertising channels, advising companies
on the right course of action is a tall order. To do this successfully you need to
know your CMOs better than ever before: What data do they need to prove ROI?
Where can they find reliable data? What role can your ad sales teams play to help them
find the signal in the noise? The marketing executives to whom you sell struggle to answer
questions you could have the answers to — Will this broadcast TV ad pay off? What segment of
my audience is even watching? Where do my competitors advertise, and how much of the market
have they acquired? How can your sales team become the critical but missing ingredient modern
marketers need to measure and prove results?

This white paper addresses these questions and walks you through the initial
phase of forming a new kind of partnership with CMOs — one that increases
trust, dependency and sales. Be they new clients or old clients with new business, for

sales teams ready to change there is profit to be made. Companies are willing to make heavy
investments in media advertising and are seeking advice on where to spend their money.

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A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Part I
Understanding the Plight of the Modern CMO

Ask chief marketing officers to name the top challenges of their jobs, and prepare for a long list.
From being increasingly accountable for revenue growth to perfecting the latest digital marketing
techniques, the pressure on modern marketers is mounting.

“CMOs understand that they’re increasingly expected to do more than plant and

water the seeds of feel-good brand awareness, and many feel that ROI is the
most important measure of their labor,” explain marketing researchers from Deloitte and

Salesforce in a report, Bridging the Digital Divide.
Yet media advertising comes with a hefty price tag, and measuring ROI isn’t easy, given the many
variables at play. Take, for example, a CMO who invests heavily in a celebrity endorsement ad to
run on TV and various digital channels. After the first few airings, the company sees a jump in
e-commerce traffic and sales. All good outcomes, but what can the CMO attribute the results to —
The celebrity’s fame? The commercial’s eye-catching appeal? Or the particular times and channels
on which it aired?
Confounding factors like these make measurement in media marketing tricky. And the growing
number of advertising and communications platforms don’t help. For instance, how can
companies effectively measure ROI with billboard advertising? And what about programmatic
ads, an automated form of advertising that’s gaining popularity but questioned as a legitimate
and effective approach? “Much of the fraud [in advertising] is occurring in the programmatic
ecosystem, where an opaque marketplace is allowing insidious actors to list networks of shell
websites, flood them with non-human traffic and cash in order to defraud advertisers,” reports
Advertising Age.

Part I 3

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

An Analytics Skills Gap

Even with a clear and concise data trail, measuring media marketing ROI presents challenges.
The difficulty, in part, stems from the long-documented data and analytics skills gap in marketing.
Consider, for instance, that Online Marketing Institute’s State of Digital Marketing Talent identified a
lack of analytics talent as the top concern of brand marketers.

In the study’s survey of 747 advertisers and Fortune 500 marketing executives, 76 percent viewed

analytics as an essential skill, but only 39 percent of that 39%

number believe their skills are up to par.

Other studies point to deficiencies in using data to better

understand and target consumers. For example, a joint study of advertisers and
by Razorfish and Adobe found that as many as 76 percent marketers believe
of marketers failed to use behavioral data to deliver more their anlytical skills
are up to par

personalized marketing experiences.

This lack of experience and action comes at a real cost, 76%
considering the many advantages of personalization — of markerters
and the growing expectations of consumers to receive a failed to use
custom experience. “In an era when the average consumer is behavioral data
bombarded with thousands of marketing messages per day,

personalization has become a key way to break through the

noise,” writes marketing expert and entrepreneur Rox Lemieux in MarketingProfs. “Marketers who

are not yet paying attention to the consumer preference for personalization are carelessly leaving

money on the table.”

With as many as 75 percent of consumers saying they prefer personalized experiences, a report
from the Aberdeen Group found, a prime opportunity exists for ad sales teams to help marketers
deliver.

Part I 4

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Limited Resources

Though marketing teams may lack the quantitative background needed to mine insights
from data, that’s not the only obstacle in the way. Data analysis, done well, takes time and
concentration, both of which are in short supply in today’s fast-paced, deadline-driven world of
marketing.

Another obstacle comes with the lack of technologies and resources — a matter supported by
Razorfish and Adobe’s finding that less than 20 percent of marketers using behavioral data have
the technology, creative team and interdepartmental data sharing capabilities to use the data as
intended.

And then there’s the problem with access. When brand marketers don’t have the in-house data
they need, many turn to media buying agencies or market research companies. But the data these
agencies collect and deliver isn’t always comprehensive or reliable, writes marketing expert
Robert Moran in Leading Edge Marketing Research, whether due to small sample sizes, overly broad
sample segments or outdated research methods.

Likewise, these agencies tend to collect data from narrow rather than diverse data

sources. Such one-dimensional analysis prevents marketers from
fully understanding their customers, competitors, and business
position — and the real value of your inventory.

As data and analytics become entrenched in marketing, and as the
C-suite turns to marketers for revenue-generating results, your ad
sales team can become the practical solution today’s CMOs need to
use data to market effectively. But the advantages don’t stop there.
This new role can help your ad sales team in key ways, too.

<20%
of marketers using behavioral

data have the capabilities to
use the data as intended. What
data expertise can you offer
your CMOs?

Part I 5

A New Vision
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Part II
Reframing the Role of Ad Sales

Your ad sales team interacts with CMOs, their staff and partners daily; exploring options,
delivering sales pitches and presentations — and on good days, closing deals. But what happens
when CMOs ask tough questions, as they inevitably do?

Which TV shows are my customers most likely to watch? When and with whom?

Are my competitors outperforming me in this area?

How do people learn about the products I sell?

Questions like these are common and can stump the best media ad sales professionals. CMOs
are searching for advice and support, and smart sales teams are stepping in to become the

long-awaited trusted partner marketers need. Answering these questions brings an
opportunity for your team to do more than sell once – but sell again and again
and again.

How does working as a partner generate results?

Sales teams have long used statistics and research in pitches and presentations, but this new role
requires a more targeted, strategic use of data to inform and guide ad buying decisions. Imagine,
for instance, a major retailer launching a new clothing line to appeal to fashion-forward, high-
earning millennials. Instead of giving the CMO high-level information about millennials (e.g.,
they use Facebook), you use data more precisely and strategically to provide relevant, actionable
insights (e.g., they spend roughly two hours a day, mostly in the evenings,
on Facebook). You could present data on:

The most common media platforms millennials use, broken down by geography.

Websites they use to buy clothes.

Where they go for fashion advice, online and offline.

The location and performance of the retailer’s top competitors broken down by geography.

In many cases, CMOs will have only a smattering of this kind of data on hand. Your job as a
trusted partner and advisor is to build on their data and analytics legwork by filling
in the gaps — synthesizing and presenting it in ways they can digest and use.

Part II 6

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

How will this benefit your team?

Becoming a brand partner offer marketers a more accurate picture of the marketplace. This new
role also allows your team to offer services and resources that most marketing team don’t have,
but wish they did. Expanding your role to trusted partner and advisor will take work on your part,

but it will give your ad sales team a leg up by:

Making ad recommendations based on reliable, relevant data rather than hunches.

Building your credibility in ways that attract new customers and increase your
customer retention and upsell rates.

Gaining an edge on your competitors.

Boosting your sales - from renewed business, add-on business from existing
customers or entirely new business all-together.

How, then, can
you make it
happen?

Part II 7

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Part III

From Transactional Selling to Data Savvy Partner

Positioning your ad sales team to guide and lead CMOs doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s less
complicated and daunting than it seems. In fact, you can take three steps now to get started:

1. Know where leading brands get their data from, and why.

Today’s marketing teams rely on a hodgepodge of analytical tools and resources to glean insights
on everything from customer preferences to buying patterns. Marketers then use what they learn
to guide future marketing efforts, and advertising buys, in ways they hope will attract and retain
customers and boost sales.

There’s no need to learn the ins and outs of every analytics resource on the market, but strive to
familiarize yourself with why marketers use them and the kind of data and insights they can and
can’t deliver. All of this will help you take advantage of a resource’s shortcomings.

What are the top analytical resources in a brand marketer’s arsenal? How do they help, and what
challenges and opportunities do they bring?

Customer relationship management systems (CRMs) and Marketing Automation
Platforms (MAPs). These software tools give marketers insight into customer and prospect
activity. They are used to build and monitor email and mobile marketing campaigns,
test various campaign elements and track sales progress. Based on the performance
of particular campaigns, marketers can draw conclusions about the efficacy of their
advertising efforts.

The challenge: Attribution remains one of the greatest challenges for marketers. If a
product launch includes steep discounts that are promoted via television spots, social
media and radio, it’s hard to know which of those variables are responsible for the
increased sales. The CRM will tell you that sales have indeed increased, and the MAP offers
tremendous insight into the digital traction of your campaign. But neither of these products
will tell you the ROI on your 30 second spot during Wheel of Fortune.

The data collected by CRMs and MAPs tells marketers a lot about who they’ve reached
and, in some respects, who they haven’t. One audience not captured by either of these
technologies is the audience the marketer doesn’t know to target. Audience discovery is a
critical marketing mission that can be achieved with other available data.

Part III 8

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

Agency Partners and Media Buyers. Since there is no software in existence that can
confirm the ROI of a television or radio spot, most brands rely on the expertise of media
agencies. These media buying partners live and breathe traditional media, and they can
tell you that NCIS was Tuesday’s top show among A18-49 and that Dr. Phil is up 6% to 3.5.
They know ratings data, customer segmentation and the intersection of the two, and they
sell their knowledge and consultative services to brands who need to understand the
impact of their offline advertising efforts.
The challenge: Partners are just that – people. They’re empirically different from software
in two profound ways. First, they don’t scale. So the capacity for one agency team to
have expertise across all media channels (from broadcast TV to cable TV to radio to print
to billboard to display) is nearly impossible. The result is often multiple partners with
competing interests to place more of your ad buys. Second, they aren’t impartial. Their
currency is relationships, and those impact not just the customers they represent but
also the ads they place. It’s a well known industry fact that media buyers often get paid
twice – once by their client, and once by the media outlet where the buy the spot. While
they provide valuable insight into the advertising landscape, their interests aren’t always
perfectly aligned with their client’s.

Market Research Firms. Marketers often engage market research companies to bring
them information they don’t have. Traditional data collection methods like surveys
and focus groups and emerging methods, like text analytics and neuro biometrics, are
employed by market researchers to help marketers connect with audiences.
The challenge: Unfortunately, as noted earlier, the data they collect may be inaccurate
due to things like questionable data collection methods or unreliable technology. Hiring
market research companies is also expensive. Not every CMO can afford to buy fresh
market research for every campaign and every audience. Finally, accessing the data
collected or applying it to a different campaign in a way that is efficient and effective

isn’t always easy, or even possible. There’s a finite shelf life for
PowerPoint presentations. Even if the analysis is fantastic, it becomes
stale quite quickly.

Part III 9

A New Vision
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Between CRMs and MAPs, marketers aren’t short on data — but they don’t have the complete,

impartial view that they need, either. They need more intelligence, particularly on
their competitive position, industry trend lines and audience insight. And
they need it in a format, and from a source, that’s understandable, reliable
and accurate.

More data than ever is available, but the burden of piecing it Innovative technologies created
all together and using it to drive revenue-generating results exclusively for ad sales allow your team
is a challenge for most marketing teams. This puts your ad
sales team in a prime position to make data and analytics a to base ad recommendations on data
core part of your services, from the initial sales call, pitch and and analytics, not speculation. Paint a
presentation to every interaction thereafter. Address the data clear, compelling picture of how clients’
fragmentation headache head on by providing a panoramic
view and a missing perspective that links everything together. competitive landscape, current and
target customers and media mix match

your own ad inventory.

2. Determine what kind of data marketers use — and what they should be using.

First party: Marketers use data to get inside the heads of customers and determine why they buy,
why they stray and why they come back for more.

Satisfaction data: Customer demographic data, feedback surveys and focus groups.
Sales data: Purchase activity, coupon codes and other sales data.
Digital data: Web, mobile and social media traffic are other areas marketers track
and monitor, searching for patterns that shed light on what audiences like and
don’t like; what they share with friends; the times they visit and interact; and more.
Likewise, they track data from email marketing, such as bounce, open and click.

All of this data is collected to provide insight into a user’s experience, create
customer profiles and even map the customer journey from start to finish in order
to better drive sales.

Part III 10

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

While much of this data resides with marketing, some is managed by sales, IT, e-commerce,
or other departments or divisions. This can make it hard for marketers to get what they
need, when they need it.
Second party data: Often, marketers hire an outside marketing research company to
supplement their in-house data with additional information. This can include target
analysis surveys, industry benchmarks, a competitive analysis and more. But this data can
become quickly out of date, be hard to manipulate or reuse and become isolated in silos,
inaccessible by other teams and projects.
Third party data: Syndicated datasets offer a diversity of data often missing in internal
data. Third party data compliments first and second party data with segment and industry-
specific information on everything from auto sales to pricing attitudes to civic engagement.
This data widens a marketer’s understanding of their target, informing smarter
communication strategies.
More data than ever is available, but the burden of piecing it all together and using it to
drive revenue-generating results is a challenge for even the best marketing teams. This
puts your ad sales team in a prime position to make data and analytics a core part of your
services, from the initial sales call, pitch and presentation to every interaction thereafter.
Address the data fragmentation headache head on by providing a panoramic view and a
missing perspective that links everything together.

Your team can combine the data your clients have on hand with other
sources to find answers and present them in ways that achieve your
goals, and your clients, at the same time — smart ad buys that will
deliver ROI.

3. Educate your team.

Of course, it won’t matter how much you preach data analytics if your team doesn’t
understand how it works. A quick primer can help you achieve this —and give your sales
team the background information it needs to speak confidently and knowledgeably about
data during pitches and presentations. See The Data-Self Assessment Appendix for tips and
resources.

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Conclusion: Leading Media Ad Sales

As marketers navigate the evolving world of advertising, media ad sales teams have the
opportunity to attract new customers and additional business.
As acclaimed author Daniel Pink advises in his bestseller, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth
About Moving Others, the most effective sales approach aims to do more than close deals —
and is ultimately about growing your business and building relationships that keep clients
coming back for more.

“Get out of your head and learn to see things from your

customer’s perspective,” Pink writes.

The aim to “serve first and sell later,” as Pink puts it, is at the core of repositioning your team
to help CMOs identify problems and make data-based — not blind or misguided —decisions.
While the process takes time, you can map out a plan for your team and begin to learn the
ropes of marketing analytics now. You can also encourage your team to ask questions and
listen as they talk to clients: What specific challenges do you face? What business goals do

you want to reach? By equipping your team with the ability to tune into
the unique plight of customers and use data analytics to resolve
their needs, you’ll not only serve the marketing industry — you’ll
lead the way in modern-day sales.

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The Data Self-Assessment A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales
How data savvy is your team? Take this self-assessment to gauge
your data fluency. Stumble upon a source of weakness? Follow Create a culture that demystifies data and present these complex
the links to helpful resources to jumpstart your skills. topics in clear business terms:

Define “actionable” data. Analyze your own data trove and figure out what data is missing.

How and why can data help marketers prove ROI? Practice data-driven storytelling techniques.

What are the challenges and solutions to working in a silo-ed Encourage your team to ask questions while acclimating to new
organization and what does that mean for data? data.

How can insights from data lead to more personalized Automate storytelling to streamline the data – distill presentations
marketing and why do marketers care? down to only the most pertinent of nuggets to better hook brands.

What do trending items “predictive analytics” and the Express and use data in terms of business value. What questions
“Internet of Things” mean for marketing? does your data answer?

What factors influence data quality and therefore your Take advantage of outside professional development seminars and
credibility? workshops.

How can data drive business decision-making — and help Invite in-house data experts to talk through how your company
your team improve its pitch? collects, manages and analyzes data — and for what purpose.

Together these resources and initiatives enable your team to make data an integral part of
your company’s ad sales services and approach, and a secret to your success.

Appendix 13

A New Vision
for Media Ad Sales

About Rhiza

Rhiza’s online software pioneers the way marketers and salespeople make Big Data actionable.
The easy-to-use sales acceleration platform allows anyone to create a polished, data-driven
marketing presentation in minutes, exported straight to PowerPoint, mobile devices or the web.
With Rhiza’s tools, users can visualize, analyze, understand and share information derived from
disparate data sets, delivering detailed recommendations based on integrated consumer insight.

Rhiza, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, has increased revenue for media companies and
consumer brands, and is used by a rapidly growing list of major brands, including:

To learn more about how Rhiza can boost your sales stats, please visit rhiza.com

rhiza.com | [email protected] | 412-488-0600

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