At a time when so many marketing budgets have been slashed and clients are asking their ad agencies to look at non-television, one-on-one direct-marketing venues for their advertising dollars, it becomes even more critical for production companies to make cold calling more effective. Unfortunately, too many of the production companies who contact me every week aren’t doing their homework, and, worse, don’t have a clue how to sell themselves to a busy, overworked creative director. Here’s how the typical cold call sounds:
"Hello, my name is Cheryl." (Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s a perky, young female.)
"I’m calling from XYZ Productions in L.A." (It could just as easily be New York, but it’s never Philly, Dallas or dozens of other great cities across America with terrific production companies.)
"Have you heard of us?" (Sure, I know every one of the nine million film production companies with perky, young female reps who sound like they just graduated from film school and have their first job but know nothing about advertising.)
"I’m calling today to let you know about some of our exciting new directors."
"I’m sure you’ve heard of Stanley Somebody, he does great comedy; Rob Winer, he’s kind of a beautiful pictures kind of director—gorgeous film; Cynthia Provost, she just won a Silver Pencil at the Moondance Film Festival; and then there’s a hip new director by the name of Puffy Pearce—he’s done a lot of cool rap videos, there’s a real edge to his work!"
PROBLEM: Let’s be honest. Chances are, most creative directors haven’t heard of you or your new directors unless they’ve been studying SHOOT magazine eight hours a day—which is unlikely, since if they’re any good, they’re probably up to their asses putting out client fires and trying to work with their creative teams to develop great ad campaigns to convince clients to do a new TV campaign, and perhaps hire a pricey production company to shoot it.
Here’s a better approach:
"Hello, I’m calling from XYZ Productions and I notice from your client roster that your agency does some very good work for Client A, Client B and Client C. Are you responsible for some of that great work?" (Flattery works wonders.)
"I know you’re probably very busy, so I won’t take up your time telling you about some of our new directors that you may not know by name, but whose work you may have seen and admired. Rather, I’d like to learn more about your agency and see if I can work on your behalf to find the kinds of directors that you’d like to work with … someone who will give you one-hundred, ten percent on your project … someone who can give you L.A.-quality work at surprisingly affordable prices … and, more importantly, someone who can take your great ideas and make them come to life on film. If that’s something you’d be interested in, when would be a good time to chat, or would you rather I send you a reel?"
Sound like a different approach? Why not share this with your perky young reps and have them spend three hours every day researching the agency’s clients before they make any calls. Perhaps the results of your cold calls will start to heat up!
