Monthly Archives: July 2011

Something to Think About

 

Something to Think About
 
Is it fair to suggest the professional radio contest player who calls your station repeatedly is indicative of your average listener?
Is it realistic to say that the rabid fan who follows your announcer from remote to remote no matter what the advertiser is selling, mirrors your typical listener?
And who is to say the only thing different about the minority who agree to participate in ratings, diary or PPM, is that they will participate where the mainstream will not?
Is it reasonable to assume that your avid Facebook or Twitter follower shares the views of the average person not following you on social media?
I think time will tell the tale that ‘followers’ and those who click your ‘like’ button are unique from your real average audience in more ways than one. You should be ware of rewriting your business plan based strictly upon the thoughts of the vocal or online minority.
And your advertisers need to tread cautiously before they assume certain ‘groups’ are indicative of the norm or that ‘clicks’ equal success.
 

What’s Wrong with Us?

 

What’s Wrong With Us?
 
Why do those of us in media think packages always infer discounts?
The best marketers sell premium packages.
BMW’s ‘sports package’ for example, artfully takes the customer’s focus off of the vehicle’s base price (the equivalent of your base spot rate) and focuses on selling a total package that includes some items the customer wouldn’t normally buy, at a price considerably higher than the base vehicle price.
Sure, they ‘discount’ the sports accessories in the premium package, but that package consists of a list of options which few buyers would buy in total; and the sports package includes their highest margin products.
BMW’s average sale is always higher, not lower, and their profits are considerably higher selling premium packages.
Many of your prospects and customers don’t care as much about ‘spot rate’ or base price, as they do about the total monthly investment and what they receive in return. Most who do focus on spot rate have been ‘trained’ by us to do so. 
Packaging a spot campaign with low cost/high profit options like product placement, on-air contests, product sampling, online surveys, mobile, data base marketing, better creative, guest appearances, and more, can take the focus off of your spot rate and result in higher average sales and happier clients.
Your ‘package price’ should always be at least 10% higher than your A.M.I. (average monthly invoice). Average monthly invoice tells you what your market and your sales people perceive your station to be worth. A premium package that delivers more than just ‘spots’ can deliver sales higher than that average.

I Was Wrong

 

I Was Wrong
 
          I’ve often criticised businesses for promoting their ‘anniversary’. Why? Because your anniversary is all about you, and marketing should be all about your customer’s felt needs, not you.
          This past month marked the tenth anniversary of ENS Media Inc and I’ve come to realize anniversaries ARE about the customer. We could not have enjoyed ten wonderful years of helping media companies build stronger more profitable customer relationships without our customers.
          So here is our tenth anniversary big ‘thank you’ !
          Thanks for the many friendships and partnerships we’ve been able to foster during the past ten years.
                    Thanks for your feed back and ideas for our free ENS on Sales management tips.
More importantly thanks to our customers; those who’ve invested in our sales training, our management consulting, our SoundADvice e-marketing system, our advertiser seminars, our revenue generating programs, our book, our sales workshops, and more!
           And most importantly, thanks for the satisfaction we receive every time we see you succeed using the tools and training we provide.

Treading Water

 

Stop Treading Water
According to a study by Forbes Insights called ‘Bringing 20/20 Foresight to Marketing,’ 52% of a group of 321 marketing and corporate managers cited customer retention as their top current priority, followed by customer acquisition and customer profitability.
The report goes on to say, “Marketers today need to view the customer with 20/20 foresight, but are caught in hindsight by focusing on what’s worked in the past, not what is working in the present or will work in the future”.
How important is customer retention in your business plan? Are you more focused on new customer acquisition than customer retention? While both are important, chasing new customers to replace customer attrition is merely treading water.
And with new media players from Groupon to Google and countless others developing more local sales forces, customer retention will be more difficult and more important to you in the future, than ever before.
If you are not content to stay focused on what worked in the past, and you want to seriously consider how to keep your clients in the future, you should consider our proven radio e-marketing system, SoundADvice.
 The SoundADvice system is branding, social media, e-marketing, sales training, blogging, customer retention AND customer acquisition all rolled into one guaranteed cost-effective system.

Right Demographic

 

The Right Demographic?
 
            What I’m about to say may go against the grain of everything you’ve been taught or have been doing. Please bear with me with an open mind.
            It’s time for local radio account executives to quit peddling ‘demographics’ as the reason advertisers should buy their stations.
            In his ground breaking Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure, Roy Williams says, “The importance of qualitative data has been grossly overestimated by many advertisers and media professionals. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It is amazing how many people become “the right people”, when you are saying the right thing.”
            ‘ Demographics’ focus largely on age, sex, and income as if the values, personalities, interests and lifestyles of a particular age or sex precludes them from being a prospect. 
            While that may have been true in the 50’s and 60’s, the demographic lifestyle differences have become increasingly blurred over the last few decades.
            For example, the 50’s mantra that the man was the breadwinner and mom was the primary homemaker is no longer true. In fact, the latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics reveal that fathers in the U.S. are the primary care givers for one out of every four pre-schoolers.
            And I’ll bet a minimum of 25% of your audience is a prospect for any local business in your market. Further more, I’ll bet that 25% of your reach is a huge number of prospects from any advertiser’s perspective. Add to that figure the fact that a substantial portion of your audience may act as key influencers for prospects, and there are very few ‘wrong’ people on any station.
            I talked to a marketer of heavy construction equipment last week. In the old days, they would have targeted very senior male construction company presidents. Today they say their customers cover the spectrum of men and women from 22 to 62 years of age….not much of a narrow demographic segmentation there.
            Another reason it’s time to quit selling demographics is we usually grasp at the demographics straw in an attempt to sell against other stations. At the last station-hosted advertiser seminar I facilitated, one advertiser asked, “which station has the right demo for me? They all claim to have the right demo”.
            These demographic claims are met with suspicion or create confusion for many of your prospects.
           In a rapidly changing media landscape, it makes far more sense to focus on messages targeting psychographics rather than demographics. Centering your presentation on the advertiser’s message is congruent with a customer-focused selling approach, while demographics resort to a station-focused sales pitch.
            Your message should talk to psychographics (personality, values, interests, lifestyles) rather than demographics.