Yearly Archives: 2016

Intel’s Loss Can Be Radio’s Gain

Last week the world’s largest computer chip manufacturer, Intel, announced the layoff of 12,000 employees. The company’s CEO said the layoffs were the result of the shift from personal computers to mobile devices.

At the same time, Google says smartphone searches now exceed laptop and desktop searches.

In a field over-crowded by digital-only salespeople, this shift presents a huge opportunity for radio account executives who know how to articulate a proactive radio and reactive digital strategy for their local advertisers.

In the old desktop world, consumers had more time to ‘research’ with key words like who, what, why, when and where. In the fast-paced mobile world, searches are shorter and the most popular search word is ‘where.’

The most effective marketers are adjusting to this change in consumer behavior, reaching out with proactive broadcast advertising to create a pre-need pre-search preference for their brand.

When consumers react to a need by consulting their mobile devices, a lumber store or donut shop, for example, can circumvent their prospects finding their competitors when they ask ‘where is the nearest lumber store’ or ‘where is the nearest donut shop.’

Instead, their proactive on-air campaigns, can persuade consumers to ask their smartphones for a business by name, like, “Where is the nearest Home Depot?” or “Where is the nearest Tim Horton’s?”

Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system includes the tips and tools you need to help your account executives sell the pro-active radio and reactive digital strategy.

Click here to arrange a free demo of the SoundADvice system.

A New Logo Will Change Everything?

The most successful brands throughout history, from BMW to Kellogg’s, and from Coca Cola to Ford, General Electric and Mercedes have all improved brands by improving their products, but never changed the icon that symbolized their business.

Every time a new marketing manager or new executive leadership enters the scene, they want to put their mark on ‘the new world order’…even if the image for the old world order was solid and delivered value.

In media, we often tell our advertisers about the value of consistency, yet at every opportunity we go through the gyrations and expense of changing our identity with new graphics. The best companies improve their products, and only resort to changing their logos in extreme cases where their image has been damaged.

FREUDIAN SLIPS

Last week, I sent an email to one of our SoundADvice members, accidentally misspelling the word service, saying, “We are always looking for ways to improve our servive to our members.” While I know how ‘survive’ is spelled, I wondered to myself if my writing ‘servive’ when I meant to say ‘service’, wasn’t a Freudian Slip.

A Freudian Slip is described as “an unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings.”

Perhaps to ‘servive’ with your accounts, you too should always be looking for ways to provide better service.

In our new SoundADvice sales meeting video series, we suggest that one way to ensure you are super-serving your clients is to review every account at the end of each month, asking yourself these four questions;

1.) What was the last Valid Business Contact (VBC) I made with this client?

2.) When was the last VBC?

3.) What is the next VBC I’m planning for this client?

4.) When will the next VBC happen?

If the answer to question 2 or 4 is longer than 30 days away, you might not ‘servive’ the next time this client looks for ways to cut her budgets.

A Valid Business Contact is any contact which benefits your client. It can be delivering a new idea to increase their sales, reviewing new data you might have about their industry, arranging a strategic marketing partnership or any other service you deliver that strengthens your relationship with your client.

P.S. Our survey of more than 500 radio salespeople revealed that more than 80% of sales people said sales meetings are ‘usually a waste of time’

Click here to arrange an online overview of our SoundADvice video series to make your sales meetings more productive.

What Do You Compete On?

Rate?  Reach? Frequency?  Creative?  Format?  Personality?  Demographics?

The most profitable, sustainable, and fun area to compete in is to compete on trust.

The three most critical strategies to creating trust are;

1.)    Become known for what you know. Your local prospects and clients today are looking for someone who has the knowledge to help them sort through the various competing media claims, new and traditional.

2.)    Always under promise and over deliver. Just doing what you say you’re going to do, is taken for granted. The winners over-perform on their promises.

3.)    Care about your advertiser’s success. Your prospects know whether you’re calling on them to make your budget, or to help them make their budget.

Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system brands you as a marketing expert and helps your clients grow their sales. Click here to arrange an online demo.

Broadcast Deserves 78% of Advertiser Budgets

 The Advertising Research Foundation released a study at last week’s Re!Think 

     Conference that makes the case for radio advertising.

     The ‘How Advertising Works Today’ study, hailed as “the most extensive industry study in more than a quarter century”, spanned 5000 campaigns for 1,000 advertisers in 41 countries.

     The study found, among other things, that advertisers can increase their ROI (Return on Investment) by not putting all of their eggs in the digital media basket.

     In fact, the study found that a budget with 78% placed on traditional media and 22% on digital worked best for audiences as a whole. For people aged 18-34, the most successful split was only slightly different, 71% to 29%.

     You know that the internet is replacing all things print, making this The Age of Electronic Media.  An electronic media mix of broadcast to inspire and internet to inform eliminates the need for advertisers to pay lumber jacks, pulp and paper mills, truck drivers, printing press operators and delivery people to produce and distribute their message.

     The bottom line? Broadcast (radio and TV) deserve the lion’s share of the recommended 78% traditional media spend.

     The How Advertising Works Today study also revealed that the cross platform message must have a common thread to be effective. In other words, their reactive digital campaign must deliver a message that is consistent with their proactive broadcast campaign.

     Our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system and our Radio Works advertiser seminars clearly position radio and TV as the strategically proactive media, creating a pre-need preference for an advertiser, and digital as the reactive media audiences turn to once they’ve discovered a need.

     The take away from this study, is we now can justify proactive broadcast media capturing 78% of the budget!

Research like this seldom convinces advertisers with stubborn opinions about the importance of print or digital to change their minds. But it can help over time.

     Where this research can really create a tipping point is with undecided advertisers… those advertisers confused and bewildered by all of the competing media claims. And that’s probably more than half of all local advertisers.

     Contact [email protected] to inquire about using Radio Works and SoundADvice to increase your local-direct revenues.