The Electronic Sales Assistant
Staff : (3 years)
The Communication Studio created the Electronic Sales Assistant (ESA) for the Newspaper Association of America. ESA gave local newspapers a complete suite of Powerpoint-like, sales presentation tools, as well as fresh newspaper sales information, and an easy-to-use connection to the NAA's online electronic bulletin board-based membership marketing support service. Fairly cutting edge for the early 90's
Online Marketing Support
I worked hand-in-hand with the marketing department of the Newspaper Association of America on ESA to develop an integrated package of a presentation creation tool, templates, an online browser and customized dynamic content. All you needed was a low-end Macintosh, a modem and a telephone line.
Goals of the Electronic Sales Assistant:
- Enable the local newspaper Sales Department to produce high-quality, customized sales presentations quickly, particularly for small-to-medium-sized ad prospects.
- Provide newspaper sales personnel with instant access to the marketing expertise of the Newspaper Association of America and to other newspaper sales colleagues around the nation.
- Get the newspaper Advertising Sales Department up to speed on the computer "fast track" with a minimum of effort.
ESA automatically updates the subscriber with current NAA membership information, industry bulletins and even software upgrades to the program itself. Features include:
- Create and edit attractive, compelling sales presentations
- A suite of "Ready To Go" customizable pre-packaged targeted sales presentations
- Direct electronic order entry of NAA publications, products and services
- Electronic mail messaging
- Animated desktop sales presentations at the touch of a button
The information architecture structure, metadata tagging and presentation control techniques underlying The Electronic Sales Assitant were based on the TextUp and Otto software productivity tools that we had developed for electronic publishing earlier in the decade. This was one of first real souped-up implementations of StyleSwitcher.
The Sales Presentation Maker
Editorial
You can construct customized sales presentations by selecting pages of sales arguments from our "camera ready" library of pre-formatted, proven NAA marketing material. You can also customize page design, edit text content create charts and merge in graphic clip art.
Presentations
This is your constantly-growing library of sales presentations; both those you've created and the 10 popular, field-tested, targeted sales Ready-to-Go presentations that come with the ESA software. Your sales staff can select a presentation from the Ready-To-Go library, customize it with your own local data and print it at the push of a button.
The Information Manager
The Information Center
Here's where you find a directory of the marketing resources available through the NAA: Retail Marketing Bulletins and Classified Bulletins, an exhaustive database of Retail Profiles, a catalog of Research Resources (workshops, brochures, tapes, etc.) that you can order electronically, and a current Calendar of NAA marketing activities.
NAA Directory
The section tells you how to best take advantage of your membership in the Newspaper Association of America. This is a complete directory of "who's who" at the NAA: names, titles, phone numbers and departmental responsibilities.
Electronic Mail
The "e-mail" feature allows ESA subscribers to communicate with one another, as well as with the NAA directly. We keep you posted on the newest developments in newspaper marketing. Eventually, the e-mail system will allow ESA subscribers to exchange actual sales presentations electronically.
ESA
Tools
AutoPresenter
(an electronic slideshow), lnfoSpex
(custom client information profile) and Management
Reporter (library of presentations) let you customize
your ESA experience for efficiency and effectiveness.
Tom Tomasi (ESA Client), sales and marketing manager at the Tallahassee Democrat:
"ESA gives us valuable, instantly accessible selling data on a broad range of subjects... We cherry pick the pages we want to give our account executives the background data they need. ESA gives us credibility in the marketplace..."
“John is a brilliant, living example of a person with outstanding creative skills matched with unparalleled technical knowledge. Cutting-edge thinking and skillful execution are routine parts of his framework.” Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative
Jim Conaghan, Director, Marketing Products Development, Newspaper Association of America
Media Marketing Business Application, Macintosh, Hypercard & Supercard programming, content management, "application-oriented" & "publishing" site, graphics clipart (SuperPaint), newspaper logos (Fontographer), documentation (Pagemaker)