Description:
Developed by McInnis and Associates, SpecTrac is a powerful data management program that tracks and reports on spec ad activity. It's instrumental in identifying who needs help and diagnosing what action to take. When installed on your creative/production network (both Macintosh and Windows platforms), it allows you to track the speculative ads your department creates, print questionnaires to your staff regarding the sales status of the accounts, and create various reports detailing activities such as spec ads requested, ads produced by artist, and revenue generated from the program. SpecTrac 5.0 ships with four standard reports: A general spec ad report, a revenue report, an artist report, and a coaching report, plus generates a memo from creative services customized to each individual manager asking which of the spec ads listed have sold. While for most of our clients, this is more than they need, if you'd like to customize these reports further, add additional reports, add new fields, or edit the program in any other way, you'll need the editable version of the software. Right now, your creative department probably tracks the quantity of spec ads that are being requested. SpecTrac goes one step further by letting the creative department give feedback on the quality of the information as well. And SpecTrac lets you instantly see which salespeople, artists, accounts, or even territories are most productive in terms of revenue and frequency. Q. Will it be compatible with my system?
A: Yes. SpecTrac uses the Filemaker Pro runtime engine, which was designed by Claris, Apple's software division. It is compatible with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. Q: What are the system requirements?
System 7.5 or higher for Macintosh, Windows 3.0 or higher for PC's. Q: How much space does it take up?
A: SpecTrac takes up approximately 1 Megabyte of RAM and 8 Megabytes of hard disk space. Q. Will it run on a network?
A. Yes. It can run over any network. It's designed to run on every computer in the art/creative department so ads can be entered on the fly. Q: Who enters the information into SpecTrac?
A. Typically, the artist who is about to work on the spec ad will enter the ad information. However, at some newspapers, a creative services manager or even someone in the advertising sales department will enter the information before the spec ads are passed along to an artist. Q. How long will it take to enter this information?
A. Since the salesperson and artist names appear in a menu, managers names are matched with their salespeople automatically, and almost everything else is entered with a series of buttons and checkboxes, an artist can enter all the information about an ad in about 20 seconds. Q. What kinds of reports are available?
A. SpecTrac 5.0 ships with four standard reports: A general spec ad report, a revenue report, an artist report, and a coaching report, plus it generates a memo from creative services customized to each individual manager asking which of the spec ads listed have sold. 1. General spec ad report
This reports on the name of the potential advertiser, the salesperson who requested the spec ad, the date the ad was requested, the ad size, and what additional information the artist needed (if any). This is all organized by manager. 2. Memo from creative services
This report is in the form of a memo from creative services that is send to each manager, containing a customized list of the spec ads that their salespeople requested whose sales status hasn't been accounted for. The report requests that the managers ask their salespeople if the spec ad sold, for how much, and for how many weeks it will run. Once the form is filled in, it then it is returned to creative services (or anyone else designated to input the information) and SpecTrac can then print out revenue reports.
3. Revenue
This report lists the spec ads that have sold for any time period. The report totals the amount sold by each rep and then totals by manager as well. It also provides a grand total amount for all spec ads sold during the specified time period.
4. Artist report
This report shows the ads each artist has created over any time period and which ads have sold. It also tracks the revenue produced by each artist over a given time period.
5. Coaching report
If the proper checkbox is checked by the artist upon inputting of the ad, this report shows which spec ads the manager has personally worked on with the salesperson. This is for larger organizations where the degree of management coaching that takes place needs to be measured.
If you’d like to be able to create additional reports, edit the existing reports, or make other significant changes, you'll need to purchase the fully editable version (Item #122 Mac and Item #123 PC) and purchase a complete version of FileMaker Pro, which retails for approximately $189. We don't sell FileMaker Pro, but you can get it from any Macintosh mail order catalog (MacZone 1-800-248-0800). |
