BRANDING
Area Directors have two branding fronts that you will find yourself focused on.
The obvious is your clients' branding...if your clients are already branded well, our goal on the ad management side of business would be simply to maintain that brand continuity. For those not branded well, we'll do our best to help "develop" a sense of identity with their ads.
The second and maybe more important branding front is your publication's brand. We'll help you advance that brand, too. There are several clever ways to do this that most Area Directors are generally blissfully ignorant of, but that's where we come in and that's why they call us the Junkies.
Announcing Branded Reminder Emails
Starting with the March 2017 deadlines, we are happy to announce that we are utilizing our MailChimp integration and formally implementing our Branded Email Reminders. Each of these emails will be formal, utilizing your publications masthead similar to the ones above and a color scheme that will match what your clients see in print each month.
Each month our team sends out deadline reminder emails to your clients: a 10 Day Reminder Message and a second 48-Hour Notice*. Both of these reminders are essential, but they don't have to be just another email to your clients. For this reason, we have designed the second, 48-Hour Notice to be customizable with a personal message from you, the Area Director. This could be a simple message with your headshot and signature, or it could include pertinent monthly information such as about events or happenings in the community.
Please ask your Ad Junkie for more information.
If you are not currently utilizing the Ad Junkies for your Ad Management, give us a shout!
STRATEGY
As Easy As...
Our Ad Management service is intended to highlight 3 primary needs that the AD's should expect from an Ad Manager.
1. The Hand-Off: There is probably nothing more mentally draining than needing to make the transition between the many different hats which Area Directors find themselves wearing. To shift from sales to gathering content to submitting ad requests to managing content and organizing events: each of these represents a reset that must take place in the mind of the AD in order to keep each elements organized and the processes separate. It is far more efficient, however, when you can stay in the sales process and simply hand-off to a competent ad manager who will implement the same predictable plan each time and take care of that client. That's what we have achieved. We want our AD's to be able to SELL and HANDOFF then rinse and repeat. By staying in the process, the AD becomes much more effective at advancing the story of N2 and is able to develop that rythm that is critical to a strong sales push.
2. A Dynamic Ad Management Program: Currently, the expectation of an Ad Manager is little more than a "personal assistant" who will handle a limited set of functions but is essentially an administrative place holder. The needs of clients, especially 'Creation' clients, goes much deeper than this, however, and by definition an Ad Manager should pursue those needs in a more dynamic way. For this reason, we take a more proactive approach with ad design by being very hands-on and deliberate in design direction and client involvement. We don't simply give the N2 designer creative license in creating ads and we don't wait for clients to lead the charge. We also don't believe that our advertisers should have to deal with the stress of the deadline each month. To solve this problem, we have developed an Advanced Ad Scheduling program where we can virtually eliminate the visibility of the deadline for 90%+ of advertisers. This means that the Area Director can focus upon the positive elements of involvement for the client without having to recover from the friction which can develop by being so demanding every month.
3. Extending the Family: Our N2 publications sell a lot of ideas- advertising, exposure, leads, etc... But the one thing that really matters, the ONE thing that we are really selling is the opportunity for a business to become a part of our community. We are offering a connectedness that they simply cannot find in other marketing approaches. This sense of connectedness depends upon us. We are the bridge that connects the two, and if an advertiser finds that they feel connected, if they develop new relationships and discover new friendships through us... then they stick around. It's as simple as that. While the Area Director is certainly the front line in this effort, the Ad Manager is a critical foot soldier in continuing to develop this story. While it is important to develop dependable processes that are predictable and consistent for the organization, we must also maintain that sense of personal attention that extends the relational dynamic of being a part of the community. For this reason, I have built my team with these characteristics in mind.