Now more than ever, the key to a successful station lies with your talent’s ability to engage the audience. And morning show consultant Steve Reynolds shares “The Secret”:Management guru and best-selling author Marcus Buckingham continues to expand his strengths message—that is, changing the way the world approaches life and work—with his new book, “The Truth About You: Your Secret To Success.” The book outlines five principles that Buckingham views as the best advice you’ll ever get.
You can change the way advertisers and decision-makers perceive your sales department. Your reward will be a higher level of buyer confidence and that can only mean one thing...more revenue! Here are Gregg Murray’s Top 15 Ideas to Modernize Your Sales Department:
At the 2008 DNC Convention in Denver, Barack Obama officially became the Democrats’ nominee for president and he electrified an 85,000 plus crowd at Invesco Field with his acceptance speech. It was a moment of historic significance reminiscent of the precedent setting “I Have A Dream” speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the National Mall 45 years ago. That history, both past and present, was recognized by radio as 38 Clear Channel stations from multiple formats joined forces with the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial for the “Build The Dream” Radiothon. It was especially symbolic, indeed significant, that Barack Obama’s historic speech coincided with the 45th anniversary Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream Speech.” In-sync with the mood of the day, the “Build The Dream” Radiothon not only celebrated the legacy of Dr. King, but it also amplified the reflections and hopes of many leading up to Barack’s historic night.
Spearheaded by SVP of Urban Programming Doc Wynter, Clear Channel Radio had the foresight and commitment to take up the King cause creating the largest radiothon in the company’s history. At a time when the broadcasting industry as a whole is experiencing financial and competitive pressures, this cause marketing effort demonstrates one thing we tend to forget:
Radio is always at its best when it remains committed to positively impacting the communities that it serves, and supporting cause marketing campaigns, like the “Build A Dream” Radiothon, improves the station’s image in the community and creates exposure that’s more cost-effective and more memorable than advertising.
With the current negative advertising environment, station marketing and promotions budgets are becoming increasingly tighter. Every line item is under more scrutiny, including the advertising and research dollars used to attract, understand, manage and grow cume. More than ever, radio executives are seeking creative and efficient ways to reach and engage their audiences. And stepping up cause marketing efforts can help in a major way.
Before the consolidation era, the FCC required stations to do “ascertainment” studies to uncover and address issues and needs impacting their communities. As that responsibility was lifted, many stations – and I might add, to the detriment of their ratings performance, revenues and relationships in the community – no longer took their commitment to community seriously, removing their focus from the true issues and concerns of people they were licensed to serve.
If you’re broadcasting on the public airwaves, how can you gain your profits from the community, but choose not to reinvest those profits into your relationship with the people and causes in your community? While some have forgotten, stations that impact the community and win in the ratings have always known the answer:
Good business and community goodwill go hand in hand—if you resolve to make money AND make a difference.
Winning stations are all about community because they know their relationship with the community empowers their success. By continually replenishing the reservoir of goodwill they create in the community, winning stations make themselves big in the hearts and minds of consumers. In turn, that goodwill enables those difference-making stations to be sustained by their communities as the stations navigate through industry inflection points, economic downturns, increasing competition and down ratings books.
When your station is committed to making your community better, your brand will benefit because cause marketing connects you to your audience in a relevant and meaningful way. It amplifies your station’s core values and beliefs within your brand experience allowing your listeners to better relate to each other and your brand.
To further the case for cause marketing and quickly remind you of why it can be so beneficial to you and your station, here are ten reasons to get more involved and resolve to make a difference.
As a part of your pre-Fall Book planning, make sure your checklist includes reevaluating or reestablishing your station’s cause marketing programs. The tremendous goodwill and exposure gained from your station participating in a good cause marketing campaign is priceless - and oftentimes free – if you’re willing to commit innovative ideas and people power to the cause.
As soon as you can, arrange an ideation session with your product and promotions teams to identify cause marketing opportunities that your station/cluster/company can link to: Opportunities that will not only increase your involvement and goodwill in the community, but also aid in the increase of your ratings and revenues this Fall.
By partnering with the right community organizations and clients to get behind the causes that are most relevant to your audience, you can extend your station’s reach into the community and ignite more intimacy and affinity between your brand and your listeners.
3. The secret to mastering any performance skill is not trying too hard. Trying too hard usually means thinking too much about what you’re doing during performance. The time to think is when you’re planning the show before you go on the air and during songs and commercials. While you’re on the air be alert and completely in the moment. Being a great listener is a major part of being aware and being focused in the present moment.
4. Prep. Prep. Prep. Highly revered basketball coach John Wooden said it best, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." Avoid reading or memorizing. Master the material with the goal being spontaneity and sincerity.
5. Pay attention to what’s important. Distractions keep talent from being in the moment and focused on the message, caller or break. Instant Messaging, request lines, sales people, and friends in the studio are just some of the distractions that will keep talent from connecting with listeners.
6. Know the selling priorities. For example with promotions, in a Lil Wayne and T-Pain contest that involved giving away their CD collaboration and a trip to see them perform together live in Miami, the trip is obviously the most enticing part of the giveaway to listeners. The following is a useful guide:
Attention: Think from the listeners perspective and lead with the biggest listener benefit, a headline or hook to get their attention. Using the example above: "Wanna fly to Miami to see Lil Wayne and T-Pain?"
Interest: Make it enticing, alluring to capture their interest…"South Beach, celebrities and the hottest performers in the game today!"
Detail: Use only bottom line, need-to-know information on live sells leaving details to produced promos. "When you hear Lil Wayne and T-Pain back-to-back call to win their new T-Wayne CD and a shot at the Miami Fly Away, we’ll tell you all about in just a few minutes on WGEO-FM.
Action: Urge them to take action…"Listen for Lil Wayne and T-Pain’s new song in the next 20 minutes to win a trip to South Beach...."
7. Sell the call letters/station name with pride and enthusiasm and say them a lot. Say the station calls/name often as you can work it in to conversation and to make it stand out. Look for new and different ways to highlight the station/name. It’s been proven in Arbitron over and over that the stations with the most name mentions tend to have higher recall and therefore cume. (This will change when your market is measured by PPM...right now---you're still in a diary-recall world!)
8. Focus on getting more TSL. The best talent are focused on ONE mission -- stretching TSL. Talent can press the flesh to build cume, but on air there is really only one thing they can do to increase ratings: convince that moment’s audience to keep listening or tune in again another time. Lead with something great that will get listener’s attention and keep them listening, or tease upcoming content to generate another listening occasion.
9. Talking in music sweeps: make a song-to-song segue by hitting the second song at full volume, let it establish for approximately one second, and then talk over the song intro. The exception to this guideline would be with cold/no intro songs, and then it is acceptable to talk on the back fade of the song quickly. Avoid ‘bridging two songs’, where the jock starts talking on the fade of one song and then starts the second song under the rap. Forward momentum and energy is increased when you hit the next song and deliver your quick message. Note: It is important to totally respect the music in some formats where its policy not to talk over the music at all. If there is any talk in music sweeps it’s done between songs.
10. Avoid letting songs fade too long. Take the song out at the point that the song starts to fade, in other words, before there is any noticeable fade on the air. Hit the next song at slightly higher volume and pull the previous song volume down. Of course you don’t want to cut the song in the middle of a word, which would make it obvious to listeners, but you can exit on the end of a refrain or phrase while the song is still hot.
11. Avoid talking over any vocals on song intros. It sounds fine to talk between any vocal intros, as long as it’s not vocal-over-vocal. And remember the cardinal rule of good delivery: just because it’s a 60 second ramp, doesn’t mean you HAVE to chat it up for 60 seconds.
12. Focus on one main thought/theme per talk break. By doing this you increase the chance of your message or content being remembered by listeners. The typical listener is listening with something less than 20% of their consciousness. To have a chance at delivering a message that gets through, it needs to be focused on one important thing they care about. Multiple thought breaks and laundry lists of upcoming content obscure the important message and detract from memorability.
13. Pot up low level intros all the way to full volume so there is no drop on the air. Keeping the audio levels consistent is good for TSL. Constantly changing audio levels is annoying and a cause of tune-out.
14. The voice-to-music ratio when talking over song intros should be similar to that of a lead singer’s voice in a song. Listeners will ideally hear the voice being slightly dominant over the music, yet both clearly audible -- you don’t want to be buried by the music nor have the voice to be so dominant that it obscures the music. The exact right place to be in the music and your distance from the microphone are two variables to play with. Listen to tapes of your show with different settings and see how it sounds without headphones on. Headphones can make things sound very different from car speakers in rush hour.
15. Make music beds repetitive and consistent without a lot of distracting musical changes. Avoid horns and vocals. The main purpose of using beds is to lift the energy level of conversations and fill in dead spaces. Listeners shouldn’t notice beds unless they’re used for staging to get listeners’ attention.
16. Be quick- but don’t hurry. There’s a difference between being efficient and succinct and rushing through conversations. If you hurry, you’re more likely to make mistakes, but if you’re not quick, you won’t get things done and you will bore your listener. The bottom line is to be a good self-editor. This is particularly important for set ups. The set up to any bit, interview, feature, etc. is critical to its success.
17. Set Ups: Clearly and enthusiastically set up a feature, bit or conversation to get listeners’ attention and pique their interest. Listeners make a mental decision on whether to listen to something after the first sentence of introduction.
18. Exits: Don’t miss the exit on the freeway -- remember to get out at an impact point. Develop a sense for when to end a conversation, bit, etc. Leave the listeners on a high note with something strong and memorable.
19. Branding. Get ownership of your content by attaching the station and/or show name to all features. Creative and entertaining produced intros and outros help you brand content.
20. Teasing. Teasing upcoming content is the absolute best way to fuel TSL. This also adds to people feeling like they’re going to miss something if they don’t listen every day or listen longer. TV entertainment shows and newscasts have made an absolute science out of enticing billboarding and teasing to create momentum and build longer viewing. They devote 25% of content time to previewing! Talent who ‘get’ the art of teasing will consistently outperform talent who don’t.
(Special thanks to morning show consultant Randy Lane)
Engaging Emotions Through Effective Radio Ads is the second part of a Radio Ad Lab project originally conducted by Gallup & Robinson (G&R) in 2007 and designed to assess how well Radio ads generate emotional responses and engage with consumers, compared to television ads.- Strong beginnings make a difference. An involving point of entry distinguishes some of the most successful Radio ads.
- Word selection matters. Words that are sensory-laden, emotional, or empowering have a demonstrable impact on the emotional reactions of consumers.
- Audio can be powerful. Audio can generate stronger emotions than visuals, especially when the tonality in the ad is used effectively.
- Brand mentions have an impact. The best Radio ads mention the advertiser’s brand multiple times, strategically placed to correlate with moments of high consumer engagement.
Thanks to
Mark Ramsey for sharing this article and his summary with me. Click here to see David’s full article.
