This article is part of our ongoing series spotlighting the talented individuals who drive Nextdoor’s advertising partnerships.
At Nextdoor, our sales team plays a crucial role in connecting brands with our unique community of neighbors. Through this Q&A series, we’re pulling back the curtain to showcase the dedicated professionals who help businesses reach and engage with our platform’s distinctive audience of household decision-makers.
In our latest installment of our sales spotlight series, we sit down with Meridith Wenzel, Agency Partner at Nextdoor, to explore the intricacies of building strategic agency relationships and closing meaningful partnerships. With her unique perspective on agency collaboration and deep understanding of Nextdoor’s hyperlocal-at-scale approach, Meridith shares insights into the evolving landscape of digital advertising sales and how she navigates complex deal cycles to drive success.
Walk us through a typical sales cycle from first contact to closed deal. What are the key milestones along the way?
As an agency partner, I collaborate with leaders at the Holding Company and Agency to drive education about Nextdoor, and together, we will identify advertisers that would be a good fit for the platform. Many times they introduce me to an advertiser to kick off a conversation in partnership with the Client Partner aligned to that account.
The sales cycle from first contact with agency leadership to a closed deal could be as long as 3-4 quarters. Our sales team works on both short-term and long-term sales strategies to ensure that those advertisers who want to activate in the longer term receive updates from us in the form of case studies, newsletters, product updates, etc.
How do you collaborate with other departments to close deals and ensure client satisfaction?
Being in Agency Partnerships means that I might be the “face” of Nextdoor externally with agencies, but when I turn around internally to get the deal done, there are numerous groups that are needed to weigh into the dealmaking and approval process. I essentially moonlight as a project manager, creating briefing documents, timelines, very clear email communication, and tight meetings. This ensures key stakeholders have the information they need in order to make decisions on the project within the timeframe needed.
Which Nextdoor/ads platform differentiators resonate most with prospective clients?
When I’m speaking with agency leadership they are most engaged when I talk about Nextdoor’s use case: neighbors visit Nextdoor when they are in the mindset to get things done. They come to Nextdoor actively seeking advice or giving recommendations, or connecting with their neighbors.
What also resonates with prospective clients is that Nextdoor is the only platform that when you join, you are coming into an existing community that you do not need to build. Your neighborhood is already established and you are simply joining that established community. They love the intention at which neighbors join and participate, not to mention the scale at which it is done — 1 in 3 households in the US are on Nextdoor.
How do you see AI and other emerging technologies changing the future of sales, both for Nextdoor and the industry as a whole?
I definitely see AI changing the future of sales in a positive way, as long as it is leveraged in a smart and strategic way. We should think of AI as a sales assistant who can aid us in completing some of our everyday tasks that used to be so time consuming. For example, using AI to help us prepare for meetings with marketplace research, or take notes for us during meetings. AI can be used as a jumping off point to complete all of these tasks — with human oversight, of course.
This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting the talented individuals across Nextdoor’s sales organization. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories from our sales team as we continue to explore the people and partnerships that make Nextdoor a unique platform for advertisers and neighbors alike. Follow us on LinkedIn and X to catch future installments featuring more of our team members.
