Success Story: Justifying Rate Increases
Challenge
The avail said…
“Rate increases are highly frowned upon. Be fully prepared to better justify any rate increases going forward. My expectation is 85% clearance.”
It was ‘22 annual season and an advertiser that we’ll call “ACME” had made an unreasonable, but not uncommon, request.
(Grab some time on our calendar to see how we make this problem go away.)
Solution
But Greg—the local broadcast AE working on this avail—was not just any AE. He was special. He had a superpower.
Or, more accurately, a super powerful tool for ad sales teams called RateOptics.
A tool that would build such a rock-solid argument that ACME would have no choice but to agree to his justifiable rate increases. With just a few clicks RateOptics provided the undisputable data he needed:
- His station was predicted to be at 100% sellout most of the year.
- ACME’s Average Unit Rate (AUR) in ‘21 was 40% lower than their competitors’ rate and…
- …these competitors were spending double what ACME was!
- ACME’s clearance was only 62% in ‘21, well short of the buyer’s expectation this year.
- Their competitors had a 79% clearance, attributable to their higher AUR.
Results
The buyer found Greg’s data points and pricing rationale “refreshing” compared to the excuses slung by lesser reps – the tired “we need to raise your rates as we head out of pandemic mode and into a political year."
What’s more, the buyer was thirsty for category competitive, so when Greg brought this hard data on competitive spend, she was thrilled.
The year-over-year results Greg achieved on the ACME annual were HUGE…
- 140% Rate Increase
- 83% Decrease in $0 Spots
- 17% Increase in Spend
...proof that AEs can be a hero to both their clients and their sales managers at the same time, while raising rates.
All thanks to his secret weapon - RateOptics. A direct quote from Greg:
"The buyer just sent over the 2022 orders and it proved to be a HUGE incremental win. Thanks to RateOptics I got the exact rate increases I asked for. I’m looking forward to using RateOptics for more wins throughout the year!”
You can be a hero, too.
Schedule a demo of RateOptics today to get started.
