Every month I work a series of features articles to be covered in a variety of our papers, ranging from Residential Constuction, Commercial Construction as well as industry products and suppliers. The biggest challenge I face is getting the lists in on time to get support from the trades and suppliers to allow them to decide to be interviewed, submit photos or buy advertising.
My solution was to give the client being featured a way to show some support for the companies they would be asking to participate by setting them all up with a free subscription to one of our regional papers. So far it has worked with lists for features as far away as December this year arriving on my desk.
The good thing about this offer is it helps introduce our product to some readers who may not consistently get a copy of our paper. It allows the client to give something back to the trades and suppliers. Most importantly it ensure that people know about the product they are buying advertising in.
In recent months one of our publications has been confused with another one that in at least one case requested prepayment from all advertisers and never actually ran the article. When approached by the client this happened to my original thought was to offer the advertiser a huge discount to run their ads with me. However after speaking with my publisher Mark Buckshon, he suggested we simply honor the ads they purchased and run them in our paper.
You are prbably wondering why would we do this? The biggest reason is the fact that people thought we were the other publication, by doing this we quickly assure people we are not and want to ensure people have the proper awareness of our brand. A couple of other key things about the papers I reperesent are as follows:
- We never ask for prepayment for advertiser. You get your invoice when the paper arrives at your door.
- If you are a trade or a supplier of a project and you can't advertise you can also be interviewed or submits photos to be used without paying a cent.
- High pressure tactics do not work, so we do not use them. Most likely you will get a letter from the client, one form us with pricing options and a final reminder. I will also follow up with everyone by phone to make sure they got a copy and know to participate you do not have to spend money.
- The most important thing that sets us apart is I recoginize the value in your relationships from client to trade and vice versa. This year we set up a referral system for trades and suppliers or construction projects who introduce us to the project contractor or owner. If we run a feature we provide the trade or supplier a free advertisement in the feature.
The key with everything above is understanding that customer service and customer care of not only our clients but the partners, trades and suppliers of our clients is the key to our success of our publications. I am very active in my construction community by attending meetings of local associations as well as being a member of several associations. Other members of our staff are also members of associations from Ottawa to Thunder Bay. "Be a member, do business with a member!"
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