Sales Development Representative (SDR)

Overview

You're cold calling and emailing marketing directors, CMOs, and media buyers to book discovery meetings for iHeartMedia's account executives. You're selling audio advertising placements across radio stations, podcasts, and digital platforms. Most of your day is prospecting—calling into companies that aren't expecting to hear from you.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Public company (emerged from bankruptcy in 2019)

Size: 12,602 employees

Growth: Mature organization in traditional media space, competing with digital-native ad platforms

Market Position: Legacy leader in audio/radio facing headwinds from Spotify, podcast networks, and digital advertising platforms

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 20% Inbound - Some brands reach out directly, renewing advertisers, referrals from existing clients
• 75% Outbound - Cold calling, LinkedIn outreach, email sequences to targeted accounts
• 5% Events/Partners - Conference leads, agency partnerships

SDR/AE Structure: Dedicated SDR team books meetings for AE team to run full sales cycle

SE Support: No technical SE—AEs handle solution presentations and media planning

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Spotify Advertising, SiriusXM, local radio station groups, podcast networks (Wondery, Audioboom), programmatic audio platforms

How They Differentiate: Massive reach (250M monthly listeners), terrestrial radio + digital combo, strong attribution/analytics for ROI tracking, local market presence

Common Objections: "We're shifting budget to digital/social," "Radio isn't where our audience is," "We're already working with [local station/Spotify]," pricing concerns vs digital CPMs

Win Themes: Unmatched scale and reach, ability to target by geography and demographics, proven ROI tracking, integration across radio/podcast/events

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Cold Calling (40%) | Email/LinkedIn Outreach (25%) | Research/List Building (20%) | Meetings/Internal (15%)

Key Activities

• Cold Calling: 60-80 dials per day to marketing leaders at target accounts. You're introducing iHeartMedia's advertising solutions and trying to get 10-15 minutes on their calendar. Most calls go to voicemail or get screened by assistants.
• Email Sequences: Managing cadences in your sales engagement tool (likely Outreach or Salesloft). Writing personalized emails about upcoming campaigns, seasonal opportunities, or data on their target audience.
• Account Research: Building lists of target companies, identifying the right contacts, researching their current advertising presence and competitors. You're looking for companies that fit iHeartMedia's ideal customer profile.
• Meeting Qualification: When someone bites, you're asking discovery questions about their advertising budget, current channels, target audience, and decision-making process. Then you're pitching the value and scheduling time with an AE.
• CRM Hygiene: Logging all activity in Salesforce, updating lead statuses, documenting conversations. Your manager reviews these metrics daily.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Perception Problem: Radio advertising is seen as old-school by many digital-first marketers. You're fighting the narrative that "nobody listens to radio anymore" even though the reach data says otherwise.
• Gatekeepers: Getting past executive assistants and reaching actual decision-makers is tough. Many CMOs and marketing directors don't take cold calls.
• Long Research Cycles: Even when prospects are interested, media planning and budget allocation happens quarterly or annually. Lots of "call me back in Q3" conversations.
• Activity Pressure: You're measured on calls, emails, and meetings booked. The volume expectations are high and it's repetitive work—same pitch, different prospect, all day.
• Deal Handoff: You book the meeting and hand it off. You don't see deals close and sometimes meetings you worked hard to book end up being no-shows or poor fits.

What Success Looks Like

• Booking 15-25 qualified meetings per month that turn into real opportunities for AEs
• Maintaining 60+ calls per day and 50+ emails per day consistently
• 2-3% connect rate on cold calls, 5-8% response rate on emails
• Getting positive feedback from AEs that your meetings are well-qualified and showing up prepared

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Marketing Directors / CMOs at mid-market and enterprise B2C companies
• Media Buyers and Planning Leads at advertising agencies
• VP of Marketing at regional or national retail/restaurant chains

What They Care About:

• Reach and frequency metrics for their target demographic
• Attribution and ROI tracking (can they prove radio drove conversions?)
• Cost per impression vs other channels
• Geographic targeting capabilities (local vs national campaigns)
• Integration with their existing marketing mix

Requirements

• 1-2 years of SDR/BDR experience (or strong internship/entry-level sales background)
• Comfortable making 60+ cold calls per day and handling rejection
• Ability to research accounts, personalize outreach, and articulate value quickly
• Coachable—willing to iterate on messaging and take feedback from leadership
• Self-motivated in a remote environment (no one watching over your shoulder)
• Familiarity with Salesforce, sales engagement tools (Outreach/Salesloft), and LinkedIn Sales Navigator