Monthly Archives: September 2016

Why Don’t You Believe in Advertising?

How long would I have to listen to your station before I heard a promotion for Facebook? … “Follow us on Facebook, see the details on our Facebook page”.

Radio advertising works. Facebook has probably been promoted on radio millions of times across the land and look how successful they’ve been.

Now, how long would a business owner have to listen to your station to hear another business owner’s testimonial about the power of radio, or a great spot for a recent piece of research proclaiming radio’s steadfast reach in spite of the growth of digital media and traditional media fragmentation?

Maybe you’re one of those advertisers who finds advertising to promote radio, “hard to measure”… nay-nay!

Every time we persuade one of our station clients to begin running great advertiser testimonials, or pro radio spots, their phones ring with leads… how much ‘measurement’ do you need?

Can you imagine the impact over time if every station in the country ran creative pro-radio campaigns? Or don’t you believe radio works?

I, for one, know it works. When will you start to reap the benefits of promoting radio advertising on air?

By the way, I’m sure you’ll find the cost of advertising on your own station, quite reasonable… LOL.

In case you missed it, a panel discussion at last week’s NAB Radio Show destroyed a number of myths about radio;

  • Myth: “AM/FM radio has very low weekly reach” (Fact: A perception of 64% vs. 93% in reality)
  • Myth: “TV is the way to reach millennials” (Fact: AM/FM radio has a weekly reach of 93% among 18-34-year-olds, compared to 73% for television)
  • Myth: “Audience shares of Pandora and Spotify are almost equal to AM/FM” (Fact: AM/FM radio shares are 8 times that of Pandora and 19 times that of Spotify)
  • Myth: “In the world of the connected car, the number one thing people do is stream online radio on their smartphones” (Fact: AM/FM radio owns a 71% share of in-car audio time among those 18+)
  • Myth: “No one under 35 listens to AM/FM radio any more” (Fact: Nielsen statistics show that millennials account for the largest AM/FM listening audience at 67 million)
  • Myth: “Six out of 10 agencies/marketers believe radio listening is dropping” (Fact: From July 2015-July 2016, radio listening was up 5% for persons 18-34, 6% for those ages 25-54 and 5% for persons 18-49)
  • Myth: “Today’s optimal media plan: Put all your money into mobile and social” (Fact: The Advertising Research Foundation’s Optimal Media Mix proposes a media mix of 78% traditional and 22% digital)
  • Myth: “There’s a total lack of ROI and sales lift evidence for radio” (Fact: The average Nielsen Return on Advertising Spend: $8 for every $1 spent on AM/FM radio)

Are you destroying these myths in your market?

Beating the ‘New’ Radio Competitors

 

Rapidly changing technology means that everyone from Pandora to Facebook and from SiriusXM to YouTube will be increasing their efforts to cultivate terrestrial radio’s biggest revenue source, local advertising.

In a recent Citi Global Technology Conference in New York, Pandora’s Tim Westergren, admitted the one thing Pandora will never be able to do, is to be live and local and part of the fabric of every community. “Their kids play on the softball team with the local radio rep. It’s an insular industry, and we’ve got to crack into that,” said Westergren.

Are you taking those live local connections for granted or are your people held accountable for strategically managing their local networks?

Are you winning local loyalties by default, or do you have a strategic plan for people on your team to become the go-to marketing expert for each and every club, association, network and clique in town?

Never has networking, online and in person, been as important to your sales as it is today.

Our SoundADvice membership includes access to a new nine-minute training video every two weeks for one full year, including one on The Four Keys to Effective Networking.

Click here to arrange an online overview of how a SoundADvice radio e-marketing membership can help you solidify your local profile and increase your local direct revenues.

How to Sell More

In last week’s ENS on Sales we discussed the fact that you don’t have to represent the number one station to be number one in sales.

We used the example of Fucillo KIA in Cape Coral Florida who sells more than 1,000 cars a month, even though KIA is not the number one brand car in North America.

Many of our readers asked “How does he do it?”

Those of you who know me, know that I’m a big believer in having the right creative as the key to advertising success, so I would like to tell you that Fucillo KIA has great creative. But they don’t.

Most people in Cape Coral will tell you they hate Fucillo KIA’s commercials. Therein lies part of the secret of his success. I said ‘most people’ because he advertises so heavily that virtually everyone in the market is aware of Fucillo KIA, where it is, and what they sell… Top-of-Mind awareness.

In a field as competitive as automotive sales, with tons of dealer ads, it’s almost impossible to come up with creative that stands out from the crowd. So, much to my chagrin, Fucillo’s two-part success formula is a formula any car dealer can benefit from:

1.)     Share of Voice, equals share of mind, which equals share of market. Fucillo’s commercials are, in my opinion, annoying, but there is no disputing that out-shouting the competition works. It would be virtually impossible to be in the Cape for a week and not have heard a Fucillo ad.

2.)    Consistent creative. Fucillo squeezes the word ‘huge’ into every spot… even when it doesn’t make sense. So much so, that if you use the word ‘huge’ in a sentence while in Cape Coral, someone will inevitably make a Fucillo KIA joke.

Your car dealers need to be told about the role of radio in creating share of mind and share of market.

P.S. Click here to arrange an online overview of how our local TOMA (Top-of-Mind Awareness) surveys can help you sell radio’s role in the new media environment.

You Can Be Number One

You don’t have to represent “number one” to be number one.

There are more than 200 car brands being sold in North America. So it’s fair to say that auto sales are a very competitive market.

And KIA certainly is not the number one selling brand.

Yet Fuccillo KIA in Cape Coral, Florida sells more than 1,000 cars a month!

Fuccillo is the largest KIA dealer in the world, even though they don’t sell the most popular brand, and the city of Cape Coral’s population doesn’t rank in the top 200 markets in the U.S.

So you don’t have to have the number one brand or number one market to be number one in sales.

Where you do have to be number one to be the sales leader is in your prospect’s mind.  Mr. Fuccillo is a brilliant marketer.

How do you market yourself so that local advertisers always think of you when making their advertising plans? Is your brand simply that of a spot sales person, or are you recognized as a sustaining resource to successful advertisers.

The sales go to the best marketer.

P.S. Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system is building the brand, and the sales, for its members every week. Click here to learn how your cluster can become the exclusive SoundADvice member in your market.