While riding on the TTC subway the last few months, I’ve noticed the vast emptiness of advertising spaces which lead me to think they’re doing a bad job of signing up companies to post their ads.

Hey TTC, here’s something you can do to find out why companies aren’t buying your ad space. It’s called Win/Loss Analysis. Firstly, though, I’m making a big assumption that the TTC is – a) calling companies, or b) companies are calling you up to inquire about advertising. As long as there’s interest in it, you can perform Win/Loss Analysis.

What does this entail? It’s the act of finding out why companies are or are not buying ad space after their decision to do so or not. You need to ask questions. Was it too expensive/cheap? Is it not your target market? Were you not interested after the sales pitch, was there something wrong in the message? Was a competitor’s offering more compelling? What was it? You’re probably thinking, the sale is dead, why would I bother calling them back and asking them these questions? Yes, the sale might be dead (sometimes not), but you’d be surprised at how many are willing to take 10 minutes explaining why they didn’t choose you. And don’t forget about the first part of the title, “Win”. Yes, you should be calling them back after winning bids. Ask them the same questions but on the flip side.

For more information on this, see Pragmatic Marketing’s website.