Selling Ad space Pizza flyer

Hi Jay, what type of ad space are you selling? Is it physical signs, banners on your website, links in your email newsletter, a combination of medium?

I would consider selling space on a postcard instead of on a pizza flyer. Much easier (and better) sale.

http://www.midasreports.com/audio/Sutherlin12.mp3

That call Don metioned.

this all still work in 2014?

What a great idea! I may just have to test this myself. I'll let you all know the results.

jthevwman, I've been doing EDDM for real estate for a year now with great results. We use the EDDM retail so we don't need a permit number.

jthevwman and Bob Ross, is that what you're using or are you using the EDDM Business where you have to have a permit number? Also, EDDM says 5,000 postcards a day we can mail, is that per post office or total?

Gotchya!

Looks like it's 5000 postcards a day per zip code. Phew!

I think oil change businesses are the best to go hand in hand w flyers... that and carpet cleaning. At least when I used to deliver them.

I just started selling ad space on a 9x12 for the very first time this past week. I am a terrible salesperson. I don't understand sales, the process, any of it. I have some knowledge about it, but I don't understand it. I walk in, I get flustered, stumble over my words, feel foolish, it's crazy I even bother!

But I'm making sales.

Only one person has told me no so far, and I truly believe that her business wasn't a good fit. Four people have written me a check, and five others have made an appointment for me to come back another time. And I've only been at it since Wednesday. A couple hours on the first day and a couple more hours on Friday.

Perhaps I can share a little bit of what I'm doing and it may be of some use?

I started with the one client I have in this business district. She gets a discount and it was a pretty easy sell. She trusts me, likes the idea of a co-op, and really believes the whole area can benefit from it.

The next business I went to was a biz that I had considered working with as a consultant, but in the end, I had to turn her down as a client. She knew me and trusted me, we had rapport, liked the idea and seeing another business had already signed up, she wrote a check too.

Now, I have the ad plan sheet with two big X's marked with the business names who reserved those spots.

Now comes the cold-calling. Note: I probably could've had my client do warm referrals for me, but she was on vacation and I did not want to delay getting started, so a-cold-calling I went.

I wear nice, but casual clothes. I am not a sales-douche, so I am not going to dress like one.

Before entering the business, I pull out my phone and search Manta.com for the business owner's name if I need to.

Walk in, address the gatekeeper in a friendly voice asking for the owner. They ask what it is about and I let them know that Mrs. So-and-so (my client, she's well-known, respected in our biz community) referred me, and that I should talk to the owner. So far, 100% of the time, that was just fine and if the owner was there, they went and got the business owner.

Now, the owner comes out and I repeat that I was referred by so-and-so and that they, and a few other businesses here are creating a business co-op with our first effort targeting 20,000 customers in the area. We'd like to invite you to join.

They always want to hear more. Now I pull out my full size mockup and while doing so, I place the ad plan sheet with the big X's and businesses who've already reserved, next to it on the table/counter/desk. It's obvious what it is. And it's social proof that other businesses are participating.

I explain that we're hitting 20,000 shoppers with direct mail, newspaper inserts, and flyer distribution and because of the power of the co-op, what would typically cost each business owner 50 cents or more per piece, we can get the price down to only a couple pennies per piece.

Generally, they get it. There might be more questions, but these folks have been in business a while, they understand what it is and with the mock-up and social proof, they see I'm serious and they see the value.

So what's working? Even though I'm a sales noob, I've a applied a number of the right things that when combined, are powerful sales tools.

1. Greet them as a referral from someone they know and respect.

2. Positioning. I position the product as a business co-op that they're being invited to. I'm not selling ad space.

3. I have a full quality mockup of what they'll be getting. They can see how a giant postcard will get attention, they see the benefits almost immediately. I then reinforce those benefits while stumbling over my words and apologizing for not being a salesman. Ha!

4. Social proof. Having the ad plan sheet with pricing and spaces Xed out clearly shows that others have paid me for ad spots already. And I tell them as much. Each new addition makes the next one easier to sell.

I think that's it. At least so far that's what I've done to be successful at selling the 1st four spots and getting appointments to come back.

And to top it off, all but one buyer has wanted to hear more about my marketing consulting, so these relationships are much more valuable than the one ad spot your selling to them.

Hope that's helpful!

If anyone has a moment, I would like some more advice about my 9x12 marketing co-ops here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ng-co-ops.html

Thanks for sharing your experience, FormerWageSlave!

I'm almost done designing a mock up, and I have my template complete with the ads I've reserved (I currently have 3 spots reserved). How much are you charging per ad? I'm selling 11 small ads ($150), 6 medium ads ($225), and 1 large ad ($350) on the postcard out to 4,878 addresses.

thanks for sharing! Those are some good prices you have there!!

I guess my ads work out to $0.03 for the small ad, $0.046 for the medium ad, and $0.071 for the large ad. Still pretty darn cheap. No business can mail for this cheap if they did it on their own.

I would rank their keywords locally, then tell them if they want your slot for local traffic (which is most of their sales I'm guessing) they can pay you for it

Great thought exacta. So you don't have to worrie about finding an someone else to advertise. Look into becoming a free affiliate with netflix, and other sites, create a custom domain to direct to your affiliate link, and put it on your flyer. Very fast way to post ads and get commissions later on.

I didn't see anyone answer your question on if it would devalue your service if you offered discounts. I think as long as you make them aware this is in "introductory discount on the first run" so they can see that it does indeed generate more customers you should be fine. Make it something like 10%.

JAY, I did something similar 25 years go with ads on paper placemats...I like yours. I'd give the pizza place a free ad in the middle with a coupon. It's free for him for just distributing the flyers for his fellow biz owners. VERY few mediums guarantees the advertising gets into the home, vs through in the trash AND the other advertisers KNOWs that it will be distributed because the pizza owner has ad on it.Give EVERYONE a category exclusive. BTW, I did well with RE & mortgage agents.

I built a coupon flyer system called 25 Coupons that does what people have mentioned in this thread. I am using an 11x17 full-color flyer, divided up into 1/4-page ads and selling for 4 cents per ad for the inside and 5 cents per ad on the outside. (I can do other sizes of ads too, but 1/4-page seems to be the most popular cost/size ratio). I am having the ads done on fiverr for $5 a piece. I print and mail them out using an Every Door Direct Mail vendor to 10,000 mailboxes. The profit for one zone is about $2,000/month. There is a local oil-change business owner I contacted who owns 12 stores in different towns around where I live (this type of owner is not at all uncommon for brick-and-mortar) and he was so desperate for a service like this that he offered to take me around this one town and show me all the businesses I should sell to and said he would contact them for me and let them know I would be contacting them next week.

Needless to say, I am very excited to kick off a couple new zones. Yes, this owner has been a godsend for this new zone but I have already sold a zone without his help and it wasn't too bad. The sales process hasn't been all that difficult. What I have found is that it is a good idea to try to pick zones where there isn't a ton of coupon-flyer competition like you will find in major metro-areas of the US. For example, I didn't realize this but there are many smaller cities of like 20,000 residents that simply do not have any sort of coupon flyer like this. Local businesses HATE the local papers because they are expensive and terrible. This is much higher in quality.

I have so much information to share if anyone is interested. I am contemplating writing up a guide for what I have done and possibly offering my system to others. The system basically takes orders, sends emails, shows ad previews, and lets the admin assemble the flyers. By the time you go to the printers, you just hit a button to generate a high-resolution 300dp PDF file to upload to your printer.

Please let me know if interested...I think I can help a lot of people on here.

I believe Gina still has her course Pizza Money
Check that out that wil help a lot.
Ashley

Go door to door to local businesses near the pizza store for relevance

I see Bob Ross has already replied to your thread. I was going to mention his great products and his big post cards. I have been planning to start his business model with my son (hopefully later this summer). Any way, why do a one-time gig of passing out flyers when you can build a business using Bob's model?

What are the reasons the other businesses are using not to buy into you promotions offer?

If there are common reason, maybe that could be a point to address.

If they're all different reasons, then the task is to be able to address each resistance. Its harder, but eventually, there will be businesses that will have similar reasons, and then, you'll be ready for it.

nice work.....

woohoo! just discovered that 'urban spoon' will filter restaurants by 'delivery' so you can choose and area and find ALL delivery restaurants with a single search. I guess just weed out the franchises (since they have to go through a committee to get permission) and walk in to the mom-n-pops with a demo flyer.

sound about right?

maybe other restaurant apps also filter by delivery?

Grub hub also has a 'has coupon' filter!