Sales Development Representative (SDR)

Overview

You cold call media buyers, advertising agencies, and brand marketers to book meetings for Account Executives who sell iHeartMedia's radio, podcast, and digital audio advertising inventory. You're working inbound leads from campaigns and outbound lists, making 60-80 calls per day to hit your meeting quota.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Public (established media giant)

Size: 99 employees in this division (iHeartMedia overall is 7,500+ employees)

Growth: Mature company expanding digital/podcast offerings alongside traditional radio

Market Position: Market leader in broadcast radio, competing heavily in digital audio/podcast space against Spotify, SiriusXM, and programmatic audio platforms

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 30% Inbound - web form fills, content downloads, people who attended webinars about advertising trends
• 60% Outbound - cold calling into agencies, brands with media budgets, CMOs/media directors
• 10% Referrals/Events - trade shows, existing client referrals

SDR/AE Structure: You book meetings and hand them off to AEs who run the full sales process. Clear handoff structure.

SE Support: No SE—this is selling advertising inventory, not technical software. AEs handle all product demos and media planning discussions.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Spotify Advertising, SiriusXM, Pandora, local radio station groups, programmatic audio platforms

How They Differentiate: Scale and reach—iHeartMedia has 850+ radio stations and massive podcast network. They can offer local market penetration plus national reach.

Common Objections:

• "We're moving budget to digital/social/streaming"
• "Radio feels old school compared to programmatic"
• "We already work with [competitor]"
• "Budget is locked for this quarter"

Win Themes: Audience size, demographic targeting via format (country, pop, talk radio), local market dominance, brand safety vs programmatic

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Cold Calling (50%) | Email/LinkedIn (25%) | Lead Research (15%) | Internal Syncs (10%)

Key Activities

• Cold Calling: 60-80 dials per day to media buyers, advertising directors, and agency contacts. Most don't pick up. You're leaving voicemails and trying to catch people. Goal is 2-3 conversations per hour.
• Email Sequences: Following up cold calls with templated emails about audience reach, case studies, or specific campaign ideas. Lots of personalization required (referencing their brand, recent campaigns).
• Lead Research: Pulling lists from ZoomInfo or internal CRM, researching companies' current advertising presence, figuring out who controls media budgets.
• Qualification Calls: When someone bites, you're on a 10-15 minute discovery call asking about their media mix, budget cycles, and decision-making process before booking them with an AE.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Gatekeepers: Getting past assistants at agencies to reach the actual media buyers is tough. You'll get a lot of "send me an email" brushoffs.
• Perception Battle: Lots of marketers think traditional radio is dying or irrelevant. You have to overcome "we don't do radio anymore" objections constantly.
• High Activity Metrics: You're tracked on calls per day, emails sent, connection rate, meeting book rate. If you miss your numbers two weeks in a row, you'll hear about it.
• Feast or Famine: Some weeks you'll book 6 meetings, other weeks you'll struggle to get 2. Rejection rate is 95%+.
• Budget Timing: Advertising budgets are planned quarterly or annually. If you catch someone at the wrong time, they literally can't buy until next planning cycle.

What Success Looks Like

• Booking 15-20 qualified meetings per month consistently
• 40%+ of your booked meetings convert to SQLs (AE agrees it's a real opportunity)
• Getting promoted to AE within 12-18 months if you hit quota

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Media buyers and planners at advertising agencies (mid-level, 3-7 years experience)
• Marketing directors and CMOs at brands with $500K+ annual media budgets
• Local business owners (car dealerships, law firms, healthcare) who buy direct

What They Care About:

• Audience reach and demographics (can you hit their target customer?)
• Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) vs other channels
• Attribution and ROI proof (hard to measure for radio/audio)
• Local market penetration if they're a regional brand
• Creative support (will iHeart help produce the ads?)

Requirements

• 1-2 years of outbound cold calling experience (B2B or B2C sales)
• Comfortable making 60+ calls per day and handling constant rejection
• Can talk to marketing/advertising people without sounding clueless about media buying
• Disciplined with CRM hygiene and activity tracking (Salesforce or similar)
• Resilient—you need thick skin for this level of outbound volume
• Coachable—willing to practice talk tracks, record calls, and iterate on messaging