May 20, 2011: Cari Jacobs is a marketing strategist for a company called Sungevity. Sungevity recently signed on with Lowes -- a big get for the company that sells solar products, and Lowes also decided to become an investor. As part of her job, Jacobs is involved in purchasing radio, and she was brutally honest yesterday about how much radio reps know about digital and social marketing.
Jacobs participated on a panel at Convergence called Sales 2.0 and Other Winning Strategies to Sell Digital, and she was not kind to radio. Nor is she impressed with how radio pitches digital. In most cases radio pitches digital as an add-on, which to her means it has no value.
Jacobs said radio stations still approach her with the same old pitch. "I'm still struggling to get information from radio partners that help me get a sense of credibility," she said. "I look at it from the angle of my consumer, and radio still comes from the angle of 'Here are my spots.'"
When an audience member asked Jacobs how they can get to her, she replied, "Inspire me." She said part of the problem is a radio leadership issue: "Tell me what you're doing to hit my heart. We're doing everything we can to dream big. We want radio to do the same. Challenge your leadership. If you want a larger share, think of inspiring ideas. Be as local as your local grocery store. Have courage to challenge your industry before Slacker and Pandora take over. They know how to target and customize for me. They can go local and collect more of the pie."
After the panel we dug down for more information, hoping it will help radio stations better understand where digital buyers are coming from. Here's the interview we did with Jacobs.
(5/22/2011 12:05:55 AM)
When asked how to effectively gain an audience with Cari her response was essentially - "Wow me. Knock me over with your creative". Which begs the question - how to do that prior to a meeting to understand what she wants to accomplish.
She was so infatuated with her own power and self importance there was little room on the stage for anyone else.
The fact remains that we have to deal with buyers like this all the time...and I'd argue the issue is often less what we DO than who we ARE(radio).
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