Using Vendasta’s Snapshot Report in your sales process: Tips from a media services provider

Prospecting is a significant sales challenge for most sales reps in media services. In those first initial conversations, a salesperson needs to build trust and stand out from all the other emails and calls the prospect is getting in order to get a response. Closing can be challenging, too. The sales rep then needs to show proof of performance in order to close.

As David Little, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Comporium Media Services, would tell you, Vendasta’s Snapshot Report can help solve both challenges, enabling a media service provider’s salespeople to increase revenue. Snapshot Report emails experience an average 29.7 percent open rate and 31.3 percent click-through- rate, versus an industry average of 18.7 percent and 7.8 percent.

Read the full story to discover how Comporium Media Services is using the Vendasta Platform and Marketplace to fuel revenue. Download the case study now.

What is Vendasta’s Snapshot Report?

Vendasta’s Snapshot Report is a sales intelligence tool that uncovers a prospect’s marketing performance in seven categories. This automated needs assessment tool grades a prospect’s online presence in seven categories:

• Listings
• Reviews
• Social Media
• Ecommerce
• Website
• Digital Advertising
• SEO

Armed with automated insights into a prospect’s marketing performance, sales reps can have more persuasive and meaningful sales conversations that get responses and results. Instead of sending generic sales emails, they can send custom reports showing exactly where the gaps in a prospect’s marketing performance exist and where your advertising and marketing services can fit in. A prospect’s Snapshot Report can even be compared to their top competitor to create valuable context and help position the report as a vital piece of information that shouldn’t be ignored. 

After the initial conversation, sellers can then create personalized online strategies using the results of the report and recommend the right products in their proposals to close more deals quickly.

Comporium Media Services increased sales by 82% in one year by implementing Vendasta’s Snapshot Reports

Comporium Media Services was founded in the traditional print and online directory space. Like many media services providers facing digital disruption in the early 2000s, Comporium expanded to offer a full suite of digital marketing services. 

In 2015, Comporium began using Vendasta’s marketing automation solution. Their goal was to increase their digital revenue by 62 percent from the previous year. Immediately, their sales reps implemented Vendasta’s Snapshot Reports into their sales process to identify leads with online marketing gaps. 

Snapshot Reports allowed their reps to take a consultative approach versus a cold call pitch.

The sales intelligence tool transformed Comporium’s sales approach and ultimately helped them increase their digital revenue by 82 percent, 20 percent more than their original goal.

Snapshot implementation tips from a media services provider

As Comporium began implementing Snapshot Reports in their sales process, they identified critical factors that helped them optimize the process along the way. Comporium’s lessons learned can help ensure you’re making the most of Vendasta’s sales intelligence tool.

Set a quota: To ensure sales reps are taking full advantage of your new sales intelligence tool, set a quote. Comporium sales reps were asked to create a minimum of five Snapshot Reports per week. This ensured the reports became a regular tool in their arsenal.

Create a regular schedule: Comporium’s sales team sends out Snapshot Reports every Tuesday. This regular schedule allows for a steady workflow and ensures consistent pipeline growth.

Call first: To help improve email open rates, sales reps would have phone conversations with their prospects before sending Snapshot Reports. In the call, they’d let them know to expect a follow-up email detailing insights into their marketing performance.

Get personal in prospecting: It can seem more efficient to have an assistant or junior sales rep do most of the prospecting work to identify potential prospects. However, Comporium determined that sales reps improved their close rates by conducting this initial research themselves. This allowed them to gain a better understanding of a prospect’s business, needs, and goals, which improved sales conversations.

Follow up quickly: Comporium reps only follow up with leads who opened the Snapshot Reports. The Vendasta platform automatically alerts them to this activity. This allows them to follow up quickly while focusing their attention on the most interested prospects to increase the chances of hitting their sales goals.

Turn your attention to upsell opportunities: Snapshot Reports aren’t just a great tool for prospecting. They can also offer an opportunity to upsell to existing customers. Your current customers might have marketing gaps that your other digital products and services could help fill. The report can help identify those opportunities.

Snapshot Reports helped Comporium improve their sales efforts using a simple process that could be measured and monitored. Implementing the easy-to-generate reports into their sales process enabled them to far exceed their digital revenue targets back in 2015. It’s now been six years since the initial implementation, and Comporium continues to consistently increase revenue by 35% per year over year.