As published in Inside Radio – August 12, 2024.
Sally Beamer and Gerry Tabio of the Creative Resources Group glean valuable lessons from Cumulus Media’s most recent earnings call.
On Friday, Aug. 2, Mary Berner, Cumulus Media’s President and CEO, told the following story during the company’s second quarter earnings call.
“In Kansas City, our local DMS team recognized that a local specialty grocery chain was under siege from new stores opened by a couple of large national brands. The team created and launched an integrated audio and digital campaign that targeted the competitors’ shoppers within a five-mile radius of the stores using special pricing and brand messaging. Only two weeks in, the campaign has massively exceeded the clients’ targeted metrics and, better yet, has generated sales increases of as much as 7% in the stores owned by a very happy new client.”
This story contains valuable lessons and gives us a glimpse of a more integrated audio-digital future.
Choose Clients that Can Create Growth
At the end of the story, Berner mentions that the local specialty grocery chain is a new client.
With the high-caliber work that the Kansas City team is putting into this project, it would be a shame if the account ends up as just another piece of new business. For this account to make a difference to Cumulus, it will need to be grown large enough to become a New Key Account by the end of this year.
Let’s assume the Kansas City team knows this and has designated this client as a Target Account.
Execute a Repeatable Marketing-Centered Sales Process
Let’s break down the story into separate steps the sales organization has taken to grow this Target Account. Some of the steps are explicitly mentioned in the story while others are implied (and some probably reveal a bit of wishful thinking on our part!).
With the information we have, we can see that the Cumulus team in Kansas City…
(a) Spotted a client that appeared to have a marketing challenge they could help with.
(b) Reached out to the client and earned a meeting.
(c) Confirmed in the meeting that the client was experiencing this challenge.
(d) Got the client to assign it to them as a project.
(e) Defined the result the client needed in concrete terms.
(f) Developed a creative campaign.
(g) Integrated a variety of their audio and digital tools in the campaign execution.
(h) Stayed involved in the project to make sure it got the results the client was hoping for.
A well-chosen client. A well-delivered sales process. Results for the client and growth for Cumulus. Nice work!
We recognize that every radio company has success stories. But the Kansas City story is different from the typical success story in a very important way. The team found an opportunity within the client’s marketing situation and succeeded in getting the client to give it to them as a project where help was needed.
Can you imagine how different this story would have been had the team just shown up to meet this client with a generic presentation on the company’s digital capabilities?
By telling this story during an earnings call, Berner makes every element important.
To all executive leaders and senior sales managers in the audio-digital space, we say, take a hard look at how your sales organization selects the accounts that get their best work. Remember that there is extensive empirical research that shows that only large clients contribute to the growth of your company. Do you have a reliable system for making sure that your salespeople prioritize their Key and Target Accounts?
Then, take a hard look at your sales process. Put yourself in the shoes of the busy decision-makers who run your Key and Target Accounts. Will your process persuade them to meet with your salespeople and ask for help with their marketing challenges? Do you have a repeatable method for generating creative campaigns that integrate all your tools to get the clients the results they need? And is the process being applied consistently enough to the accounts that matter most?
These are all important questions to ponder. The future of your company may very well depend on the answers.
Sally Beamer is Managing Partner and Gerry Tabio is Founder & CEO at The Creative Resources Group, which specializes in helping media companies create year-over-year growth. You can reach them at sallybeamer@creativeresourcesgroup.com and at gerrytabio@creativeresourcesgroup.com.
