Monthly Archives: January 2012

Ask Not What Your Network Can Do For You…

By Sarah Billingsley, AWN Communications Director

As you know, AWN is an advertising sales cooperative, not a traditional national sales company. While we may not be a conventional ‘rep firm’, we continue to represent over 165 publications for a majority of their non-local advertising. Publications in our network reach 14 million adult readers and have a total circulation of 6 million.

Our size, diversity and unique product offering is certainly one of our selling points, but our sales model is also quite different . Any network member can claim potential advertising prospects on behalf of the network and become the sales point-person for ad campaigns running in multiple publications. We have sellers from all over the country, representing a publication in their local market, region, and/or publications around the country.    The success of this cooperative sales model depends greatly on active participation from our members. That’s where member can make a difference by contributing and reap the benefits.

A traditional sales rep firm model requires centralized control of all potential and active regional and national advertisers and publications in that circle often give up the ability to sell non-local account categories as the price of admission. For example, a sales rep who came from a publication that subscribed to the traditional model shared with us that they had sold a new advertiser, Bucca di Beppo (a national restaurant) but the account was removed from local sales and automatically reverted to the rep firm as a national account.

Clearly, AWN does not work in that fashion.

In the AWN model, sellers can maintain control of accounts like Bucca di Beppo, and if they have not advertised with other publications in the network, they could likely become network ad accounts. Sellers can represent the network and pitch regional or national ad campaigns, and in turn earn direct sales commission and incentives.

We believe this cooperative sales process is preferable… for publications, ad sellers, ad clients, and the network. We work together, for the good of the whole. This is truly a model of collaboration, relationships and teamwork.

But, we need all eyes and ears looking and listening for business opportunities, and all of this cooperative energy working towards keeping the network sustainable. We produced an information packet for sellers to keep on hand for sales opportunities.   Hopefully in the info packet, we have anticipated questions potential sellers may have about AWN network sales.   Contact our office for a PDF of the packet.

We are providing this document so that you have all the tools available when you ask not what your network has done for you, but what you can do for your network.