The pace of change in the world accelerates every day. The top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
Yet as rapidly as our world is changing, certain tried and proven principals stand the test of time and are more relevant today than ever.
Dale Carnegie wrote the first best-selling book on salesmanship, How to Win Friends and Influence People, back in 1936. It still sells today and has sold over 15 million copies world-wide.
In 1936, he said, “This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating the truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting and dramatic. Movies based upon true stories do it, and radio does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.”
Advertising is merely multiplied salesmanship, allowing you to tell your story to hundreds or thousands of people all at the same time.
Consumers have all of the facts, figures and research about your products and services at the click of a mouse today. But it’s drama that makes those statistics memorable and drives your prospects to learn more about you.
When Krazy Glue launched their historic campaign in 1980, they could have talked about how many pounds per square inch Krazy Glue could hold or quoted other research and statistics about the glue’s adhesive ability. But they chose to dramatize Krazy Glue’s strength by gluing a man’s hard hat to a steel beam and suspending him in mid air, held only by the glue. The rest is history.
(You can view a clip of this classic commercial here) http://www.youtube.com/watch?SXZv2KZKCCo
The best marketers today use the captivating power of drama to showcase their strengths, and they use their web sites and social media pages to validate the stories they have told.
 Click here to arrange an appointment to discuss how we can use drama to make everything you do online much more successful.

Marketing guru and author of 15 best selling books, Seth Godin says “It’s nice to be found, but essential to be sought.”
Your prospects are hearing a lot of noise about the importance of being “found” online through various key words, search engine optimization and more. Most of this hype is because the ability to search for businesses on line is relatively new and the technology is changing daily.
But Seth is right. Being “sought” is much more valuable than being “found.”
The internet has changed the way consumers buy today. It is imperative that a business has a website that is useful and helpful to them when they establish a need to buy. It’s equally imperative that businesses establish a pre-need awareness and preference for their name so that their website is sought rather than hoping it is found in a list with their competitors.
If someone seeks a business name, they are already predisposed to buying from that business. If they merely find a business name from a list of competitors, the uphill battle to win in that crowd has just begun!
The basic marketing principal is simple: If you owned Peter’s Landscaping, would you rather your prospects search “landscaping” to find a list of landscapers, or would you rather they sought you by searching “Peter’s Landscaping?”
Of course, you want prospects to search for your business name!
By the way, if your clients are gambling on being “found” there are a lot of players in that race to the top of a search engine page. There is only one player in the search for a business by name.
Only intrusive media like radio and TV can create pre-need awareness and preference for a business. New media strategy is very simple today.  It’s “Broadcast inspires, internet informs” and there is no need for old printed media any longer.
When you learn to tell the new media strategy story effectively, you will attract more 52 week business, and your clients will get more hits on their web sites.
Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system brands and trains your account executives to tell the new media mix story effectively to increase your local direct sales.
PS...I’m speaking at the NAB/RAB Radio Show in Orlando next week and I’m eager to meet as many of our ENSonSales readers as possible.  If you’d like to meet, please contact me at [email protected]  and I’ll have Angela set us up.

Why are advertisers delighted with “responses” or likes on the internet while they demand that their cash registers ring when they invest in broadcast campaigns.
In part, it is because over-zealous salespeople create unrealistic expectations and in part because of simple math.
The simple math is: Low investment = low expectation, high investment = high expectation.
Along with low investment comes a willingness to take more risks with the message; risks that can result in more effective messages than so-called “call-to-action” commercials.
Last week I met a local hardware store owner who was amazed when her Facebook likes jumped from 6,000 to 18,000 with one simple post. Social media gurus would promote this response as “going viral” and claim a 300% increase.
During the early August heat wave she simply posted a “Dogs Welcome” sign on the front door of her store, took a picture of it, and posted it on her Facebook page, inviting shoppers to not leave man’s best friend in their cars while shopping.
Think about this “amazing” response. The appeal was emotional. It cost the advertiser nothing. It had no call-to-action and didn’t try to sell anything. And it went viral because it won the hearts of dog-lovers!
More importantly, it cost the Facebook friends nothing to share it and respond. It’s easy to get a response when you’re not asking consumers to open their wallets “today”.
Broadcasters are just as guilty of embracing so-called “earned media” versus paid media as my hardware store friend. We hail it as a success when we capture a few followers on free social media, but question our investment when no one has ever said “Boy I like that billboard you bought.”
The internet has changed the way consumers buy and the way sellers sell. In the pre-internet world, many marketers practiced the ABC’s of selling: Always Be Closing….. “Come in today, these savings won’t last.”  Marketers have learned that the ABC’s of selling today are Always Be Connecting….and the “Dogs Welcome” message certainly connected emotionally with pet owners.
I doubt the message would have gone viral had that store owner posted a one-day special on paint on her Facebook page.
Imagine the impact of the “Dogs Welcome” story had it been told to 100,000 or more TV viewers or radio listeners.
In our eagerness to make the sale, many local broadcast salespeople have created unrealistic expectations, promising immediate results with “call-to-action” ads rather than positioning the power of emotions and branding to Always Be Connecting.
And it’s those unrealistic expectations which cause advertiser dissatisfaction and high account attrition rates.
Advertisers who are happy winning hearts online can be even happier with their paid campaigns if we persuade them that we can win hearts and win wallets by combining powerful branding messages with a call to action.
There is no better way to Always Be Connecting than with heartfelt stories delivered by a human voice. Add to that, the inspiring emotional impact of music and the other tools available to broadcasters, and broadcasting can quickly become the fuel that drives an advertiser’s total media mix.

There are still a few dates available in 2013 and 2014 to schedule our “Winning in the New Media Economy” seminars to persuade your prospects to abandon print in favor of a strategic broadcast and internet media mix. Contact [email protected]

Blasting Email Blasts

I occasionally receive station presentations in my inbox, and most of them clearly tell me why stations are not selling more.

Of course, their first error is sending me the presentations in the first place. The sender has obviously not refined their e-marketing data base, nor custom tailored the cover message to be relevant to me… I’m not a prospect.

The senders merely send the same “package” to everyone in sight hoping something will stick… in the seventies we called that the “spray and pray” method of selling. (It didn’t work then either!)

I received one such email this week from a station selling local play-by-play broadcasts for a nationally-franchised sports team ….the name has been withheld to protect the guilty.

The cover note suggested three “marketing packages” were attached, but I could find no such marketing package, only three packages of radio spot schedules at three investment levels; $500 a month, $1,200 a month and $3,000 a month.

Here is a little secret about pricing!  Rounded-off even-number pricing results in your prospects asking you to “sharpen your pencil”. No one believes there has been any sophisticated rationale behind rounded-off pricing. If you want your prospects to feel you have sharpened your pencil in your “package” always choose odd numbers, like $565 instead of $500.

Exposing three package levels in an email blast, rather than preparing a custom solution to fit the advertiser’s objectives and budget, results in advertisers gravitating towards the smallest package.

In a mass blast like that, why would you pre-suppose certain budget levels? An advertiser with a budget of $2,000 a month, in this case, would have reverted to the $1,200 a month package, leaving $800 a month on the table because the next package level was beyond their budget.

The three “marketing” packages said nothing about marketing at all, or what was in it for me to sponsor these packages or broadcasts. These packages only revealed X number of spots and sponsor credits for X number of dollars.

Your prospects do not get excited about being presented the same cookie-cutter proposal that they know you presented to their competitors yesterday.

Prepare a creative cover note that captures the advertiser’s attention and opens the door for an appointment for you to make a custom proposal to achieve their marketing objectives….and do not call a spot schedule a “marketing plan”.

Next week, we will discuss how to prepare real marketing packages.

If you want to increase your local-direct revenues in 2014, email [email protected], or make an appointment to see him in the Consultant’s Corner at the RAB Radio Show in Orlando in September.