Corey Elliott is the person I call when I need to understand what is actually happening inside local advertising. As Executive Vice President of Local Market Intelligence for Borrell Associates, he runs the largest ongoing survey of small and medium businesses in the United States and oversees a database of local ad and marketing spend that almost no one else has. I had him on for a two part webinar conversation about strategies to boost radio ad sales, and the lessons went way beyond radio.
I’ve combined both parts into one piece here so you can read the full arc. If you sell for a media company of any stripe, you will find yourself in these pages.
Why Radio Got The Latecomer’s Advantage
Corey started with a reframe that I think most radio sellers miss. Newspaper got hit by digital disruption first. Television followed. Radio was the last traditional channel to be fully disrupted, and that timing was actually a gift. Radio had the chance to watch how the other channels fumbled the transition, and the smart operators learned from it.
The data backs the story. Five years ago, only 31 percent of local advertisers said their radio sales rep was savvy in marketing. That number has climbed significantly since. Corey called it the highest jump of any medium. The reps who embraced digital and started selling strategy instead of spots are winning:
“They all seem to say, yeah, we need to do more than what our core is. Whatever our core media is, we need to get out there and provide much more than we have. We need to incorporate content creation.”
The 2032 Question
Corey asked a bunch of media CEOs a pointed question. Not what is your plan for next year, but what does your media look like in 2032? Most of them said their core medium will still be here. I hope they are right. History says you better skate to where the puck is headed, not where it sits today.
For radio that means:
- Adding content creation as a service line
- Bringing digital into every campaign as a matter of course
- Owning the attribution story so clients can see the lift
- Teaching reps to sell solutions instead of inventory
The Google Business Profile Epiphany
I’ve watched this moment land in rooms of radio sellers over and over. A rep runs a 13 week traditional radio campaign. Then they pull the client’s Google Business profile metrics from before, during, and after the flight. The trend line speaks for itself. Flat baseline, noticeable lift during the campaign, sustained uptick after.
That is not a coincidence. That is attribution. And it is the difference between a rep who can justify next year’s budget and a rep who gets cut because the CFO cannot find the value. When I coach sellers, I always tell them to announce the reporting cadence in the initial presentation. Tell the client you will show up in 30 days with a proof of performance report. That single promise changes how the customer experiences the buy.
Show Up After The Sale
Corey was emphatic on this, and I could not agree more:
“There is no set it and forget it. Well maybe if you’re selling one thing, but we just talked where the money is is solving more problems, right? If you’re selling one thing, you’re the vending machine at that point.”
A rep who sells once and disappears is a vending machine. The money lives in being the ongoing strategist. That means monthly cadence, proof of performance, course corrections, and cross sell conversations. Every one of those touchpoints is a chance to surface a new problem the client will pay to solve. I wrote more about the cadence discipline in my conversation with Jed Williams on proving performance.
The CFO Conversation
Here is the part of our conversation that surprised me. Corey told me he is spending more time with CFOs of media companies than heads of sales. When I reflected on my own calendar, I realized I am doing the same.
CFOs are looking at unit economics. They want to know why margin is thin, where the waste lives, and whether the digital revenue is actually profitable. One CFO put it to me bluntly. He said he did not care that his company was doing 8 million dollars in digital revenue when it cost 9 million to deliver. That is the conversation happening right now in media boardrooms across North America.
The answer is not to retreat from digital. It is to sell more holistically. Solve more problems per account, and make sure your cost to serve is aligned with the margin you are earning. That is also the theme I unpack in my article on how to stop the bleeding on leads.
The Seminar That Failed And What It Taught Me
I told Corey a story from a recent radio launch. We were rolling out a new media company across seven markets. The CEO wanted the first market live in three weeks. The local team panicked. We did not have enough time to invite, prep, and deliver the kickoff seminar the right way.
The lesson is not about the calendar. It is about the cost of rushing the education part of a sales transformation. Reps need time to rehearse the new talk track. Managers need time to coach it. Customers need time to understand why the approach is different. Skip any of that and the first wave of conversations sets the tone for months of recovery work.
Where To Go From Here
If you sell for a media company, the Corey Elliott playbook comes down to a few disciplined moves. Commit to a proof of performance cadence on every account. Bring digital attribution into every traditional campaign, even just the Google Business profile lift. Have the harder conversation with your CFO about what it actually costs to deliver the revenue. And stop thinking of yourself as a seller of inventory. You are a solver of problems, and the problems are getting more interesting every year.
Corey is one of the sharpest voices in local media intelligence and I am grateful he walked us through both halves of this conversation. If you want another adjacent read, check out my piece on leveraging online reputation to increase sales.