Tattoo Strategy and New Biz

Yesterday in an interview, I was asked about how I do new client outreach. I mentioned focusing on categories and using tools like MediaRadar, LinkedIn and industry events to find likely prospects – and found myself reminded of one of my earliest lessons in sales.

I was selling local TV ads. A tattoo artist called in (hooray!) and asked about working with us. We’d never had a tattoo shop on the air, but I confirmed that it would be ok to work with them and then went out to see him. He explained that he did both body art and piercings, and that people in the know called his shop a studio– and he shared a lot about the type of customers he was trying to reach and how his business worked. Our team built a campaign that turned out to be very effective for his studio (lots of MTV and late nights, if I’m remembering right) and they became a renewing client.

And then something weird happened.? Another tattoo studio called in, wanting the same type of campaign. They’d seen his ad and wanted something similar for their business. Easy enough. And their ad brought new customers in for them too.

And then I got smart and started looking for tattoo and body-art shops. By the time I moved on, our little cable system had five tattoo studios on the air – and I was a stone-cold expert in creating campaigns that worked for that type of business. It helped that tattoos were becoming more popular and that many shops were opening, but by being aware and staying focused, we turned what could have been a blip into a trend.

You might think that the lesson I took from that experience was to prospect in categories – and you’d partially be right. If something works for one tattoo studio or one car dealer or one real estate firm or destination marketing organization or direct to consumer marketer or streaming service or restaurant, odds are it can work for another. But the real lesson was that because my colleagues and I learned so much about the way businesses in the category expected to be treated, the way they thought about customers, and the type of results that were significant to them, and the language they preferred, we were able to get them all great results. By becoming an expert on what worked, I was able to get better and better at working within the category.

Sometimes sales managers think that “success” is getting a client on the air. In weekly meetings they’ll go around the room talking about feats of sales strength – applauding salespeople who use research to convince a client to move forward or who get an existing advertiser to use a new product. Those stories are worth sharing, sure – revenue is the success metric for media sales teams - but in my opinion, the success stories that need to be shared in sales meetings to have a healthy percentage of new business, are stories of advertiser success. Results are the key to renewals, to new clients, and to successful sales teams. ?

The reason the lesson is tattooed(!) on my brain is that every time I find myself selling something new, I’ve gotten the best results when I focus on what our customers need. New biz needs salespeople who truly understand and respect their customers, who deeply understand their client's products and their own, and who are able to give time and attention to finding new customers they can help.

Kathy 11/6/24

Hat tip, btw, to the team at JDA Media, who live and breathe and preach the “results are key” mantra.