The radio station marketing model is unique in that we serve three distinctly different target customers. Most other businesses only target those who can spend money with them.
But in radio, we have three target groups that affect that “spend” and we need a strategic marketing plan for each of those target customers.
One, of course, is our audience. Most stations do have promotional and marketing plans to attract and maintain audiences.
Our second target group is our paying customers…our advertisers. Most stations are fairly effective at reaching and influencing this group as well.
It is important to calculate the per capita value of each of your target customers. If a station has annual revenue of $2 million with a listening audience of 50,000 people, then each listener is worth $40. Using that same revenue base and a total of 250 advertisers, each advertiser is worth an average of $8,000.
But it is our third target that is by far the most valuable per capita and yet we often have no marketing plan to attract, motivate, and keep these customers.
The third target is our internal customers; our staffs. If that same $2 million station has a staff of 20 who sell, create, administer and invoice the $2 million in revenue, then each staff member is worth an average of $100,000.
When the lights go off, your biggest assets go home!
Do you have a marketing budget and plan to attract and create customer satisfaction for your most valuable customers…your internal customers?
Every once in a while, I meet a salesperson who proudly proclaims, “I’ve got the gift of gab.” In sales, that “gift” is more aptly described as “the curse of chatter”.
Successful sales professionals know that sales is really more about listening than it is about talking.
Those with the curse more often engage in product or feature-speak than they do in providing customer-focused solutions or opportunities.
Customers don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care….and caring is demonstrated by listening.
Listening is by far the most important and difficult skill a sales professional can learn and practice. The salespeople who annoy and alienate prospects the most are those who claim to be good listeners but follow every customer objection with a “yah, but….”
There is no room for the word “but” in a good listener’s vocabulary.
To be a professional listener you need to:
1.) Earn the right to ask questions by learning something about the prospect’s business before you make a call.
2.) Prepare with open-ended questions that encourage the prospect to express their views and feelings.
3.) Demonstrate you are listening by taking notes. (Always ask permission to take notes. “Your input is important to me; do you mind if I take a few notes?”)
4.) Paraphrase and summarize what you hear. Don’t start a debate.
5.) Use the language and needs you hear the customer express when you make your presentation.
6.) Make certain that every benefit you present relates to a need you heard the prospect express.
There is a lot more money to be made being interested than there is in being interesting. So why not shut up and make some money!