Tackling the challenges of political ad spending in local markets during midterm elections

Political ad dollars are currently flooding into battleground markets across the country. In fact, markets in Florida report record-high ad volume and revenue – in some cases up more than 20% over projections. This high level of spending on political ads extends past traditional TV and radio, of course, with Florida reaching more than double the second highest state in terms of political ad dollars spent on Google over the summer.

This is certainly welcome news for broadcast groups with local stations lucky enough to have competitive races in their geographic reach, but presents a real challenge for local advertisers who are getting pushed off TV – and a headache for sales managers and AEs who have to deal with frustrated advertisers.

Over the past several years, Magid has deployed Advertising Sentiment Tracking studies to assess what’s most important to local marketers and measure their satisfaction against those ideals. Our research points to a clear pattern – clients are generally not overly concerned with, or broadly satisfied with, local television teams’ performance against basic blocking and tackling issues.

Billing, reporting, and ease of doing business generally score low on the importance and high on satisfaction for customers. In other words, these areas that make political season such a headache for sales teams are actually where they generally perform best, but matter least.

These same studies show that the biggest gaps for most sales teams are in communicating value and owning a position of expertise in the minds of their clients. That’s why savvy teams are using this political season to reset their relationships with their customers and to refocus the conversation around value and expertise.

Instead of worrying about clearance and inventory and rates, strong sellers are putting their client’s business needs first and building creative marketing solutions to drive long-term trust, deepen relationships and drive real value for their clients.