We’re all getting very good at talking about attention metrics as they relate to advertising campaigns, but in this episode of The Six Sells Podcast, I spoke to Liam Brennan about the the media agency view on how you might get attention with your sales and marketing efforts.
Important note: This episide was recorded and first published in November 2020, and Liam was at Mediacom at that time.
I have been using the days between Christmas and New Year to revisit some of my favourite episodes of The Six Sells Podcast, and highlight the learnings they contain.
Sometimes I find I am so engrossed in the production of the podcast, and the asking of the next question, that I don’t fully take on board the gold that guests such as Liam give.
So here is a summary of Liam’s gold, and why you might like to listen to this episode:
We delved into what media sales and marketing looks like when you are on the receiving end. The complexities of managing a busy inbox filled with emails from a diverse set of senders, including clients, his boss, publishers and vendors, often 100+ a day, is no mean feat and often those who are generic or unfamiliar will struggle to get any attention at all as a result of buyers “drowning in email”.
On the subject of effective communication, Liam underscored the significance of personalisation and relevance, which can be delivered after just 5 minutes or so of research.
Firing off generic, poorly researched emails, may feel like a quick and easy marketing tactic, but they are unlikely to get any attention in an inbox that is full of other emails. Liam also addressed the multi-channel approach that some sellers had been successfully using, saying "There are people who do a really good job of following up both on email and LinkedIn." Liam pointed out that his LinkedIn inbox is nowhere as busy as his email, so the multi-channel approach, when down respectfully, can work.
Additionally, as I alluded to above, Liam emphasised the importance of doing a little homework before initiating contact saying words to the effect that if you can’t be bothered to do just 5 minutes homework, why do you think I would bother investing clients money with you?
For me, this statement points to the necessity of understanding the recipient's context and needs, and sending well crafted messages, person-to-person, that are relevant, could only be written to the recipient (not copy and pasted to thousands) and feel like you speaking to them, in order to increase open rates, attention and responses.
Many interviews have spoken to media execs about getting attention for B2C brands, but I haven’t heard any that go into depth on what it is like to be on the receiving end of our sales and marketing efforts.
Summary: To enhance the effectiveness of your communications, only send messages that are:
✔️ Personable, one-to-one messages
✔️ Researched
✔️ Relevant to the individual
✔️ Timed well
🎙️ - Liam is well worth 45 minutes of your time on the episode of The Six Sells Podcast, which is available on Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon Music and others.
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