The Advertising Sales Imperative

No Trust, No Transaction.

     Have you asked yourself; "What do my customers need to make more sales?" Helping advertisers make sales is - after all - what we as advertising sales people do. Our customers buy media and promotion from us, because it helps them make sales.
     Advertising helps makes sales through a contribution to the building or enabling of awareness, trust, interest, desire, information gathering, comparison shopping, and ordering or purchasing.   Each medium contributes in a different way and brings its own values to the advertising messages it delivers.
     Advertising vehicles targeted to reach the 'transactional' end of the purchase process has been built up over the last decade first with internet advertising and now even more targeted mobile marketing. Both are getting so much attention it's easy to forget that without trust there is no transaction.
     The most important, hard to build, value in the purchase process - the 'funnel,' as the car dealers would call it - is trust. A product can have all the awareness in the world, and if it doesn't have trust it won't sell. Trust is more important to sales in some categories than others. Purchasers of bubble gum don't require the same level of trust of the company and brand than do purchasers of automobiles. Trust is built into the purchase process in many ways. We trust our doctors, so we don't require the same level of trust built in advance for a drug or treatment recommended by our physician. We trust our grocer to sell food that is pure, and good and right. But even in the grocery aisle nuances of trust effect which can of beans we pick. In every case, from groceries to life insurance, the brands with the greater trust win the competition or command a higher price.
     As sales people we help our customers by helping them understand the role our medium and our properties bring to building the trust that leads to transactions for their brand.
     Those of us who work in the world of marketing and advertising are surrounded by news and predictions of the ascendance of digital media, and of the decline, even death, of print and other traditional media. But print is the medium most trusted by readers. Since advertisers need trust, until further notice they need print.
     For reasons partly historical, and partly tangible, print builds trust. When readers see print ads it builds their trust of the advertiser. The tangibility of the medium is one reason. Readers can refer back to a print ad, while a TV ad or Internet ad is there briefly and then gone forever. And of course the advertisement benefits from the aura of trust built by the magazine or newspaper. Readers trust the editorial of the publications they chose to pay for, and to dedicate time to reading, and they know the publication only accepts advertising for legitimate products.
     In the consumer arena, a study by Erdos and Morgan found that when consumers completed the statement "I can usually trust and believe the advertising appearing in or on..." 43% answered magazines, while 32% answered network TV, 15% answered cable TV, and only 10% the Internet.*
     In the world of business-to-business marketing, Harris found that 70% of business executives said B2B magazines "provide information I can trust" compared to only 59% who responded about information on B2B web sites.**
     Print brands, and the environment they offer, provide an important advantage to the advertiser by making the advertised company or product appear more important and more permanent than other media. Print advertising is often called an 'investment' because it helps advertisers earn trust.
     In contrast to print the Internet is a medium that uses trust. We do business over the internet with companies we trust, but we don't even trust the Internet enough to open an email from someone we don't know and trust. And because of phishing we even have to be alert for web sites impersonating a company we trust.
     The print publishing business is certainly undergoing an important transition. The old business models are being stress-tested. As the economy passes through this recession most businesses are being challenged to better prove or improve the value they deliver their customers. Being a number 2 or 3 or 4 magazine or newspaper in a market will certainly be a dangerous position. But we can help our businesses and help our customers if we communicate clearly the value of the trust earned with their print investments in a world where trust is in short supply.

*Source: http://www.magazine.org/advertising/accountability/4869.aspx

**Source: http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com/abm/Research_Marketing.asp?SnID=2116216370