The digital advertising industry has been a whirlwind of best practices and standards that seem to change on a regular basis. Knowing what those are and how to best fit them to your advertiser’s campaign needs to be a transparent conversation. Nowadays, advertisers work with a broadcast company who probably hasn’t been selling digital for a long time, has an agency who executes digital products only, or a local marketer who is building their business up with several different solutions other than the digital-only offerings. The main constant that these consultants have in common: The vendor who is running the campaigns for them.
Communicate
The communication stream between the sales and operations side of any business is a critical component. With digital, this communication stream needs to be as transparent as possible as advertisers are becoming more educated. As the executioners of the campaigns (vendors), they need to know exactly what the advertiser is expecting and to run them in alignment of their goals and objectives. The ease of a campaign starting with one idea and adjusting to a different idea or strategy can happen in a matter of seconds if these expectations are not made clear with each party involved in the campaign fulfillment. When these expectations are not clear, the advertiser is not receiving the deliverables that they signed a contract for.
Set expectations
To ensure that expectations for each campaign are made clear for your vendors and fulfillment teams, expectations need to be set. Our sales representatives need to provide a detailed breakdown of what is being delivered to the advertiser and what the goals and objectives are expected as the result of these plans. Then, the operations team needs to review all information to confirm their understanding of what the customer is expecting. Too many times in too many companies, the mentality of Sales vs. Operations breaks this process, and customer retention suffers. When executives set common goals for both their operations and sales teams, these destructive mentalities become more obsolete in day-to-day tasks. The key to success is making common goals known.
Work together
Breaking down the barriers between sales and operations ensures you are always delivering on what was promised to clients. The more these barriers are broken down, the easier it can be to retain those clients and reduce the churn your teams can sometimes feel. Working together to reach these goals can be difficult, but with work and communication, the goals are attainable. Start by over-communicating, paying attention to every detail that is communicated, and double-checking the work on both sides. This will result in better sales people, better operations fulfillment, clear expectations, and happy clients.
