Over 60% found designing a social media strategy, and making social media data actionable, to be challenging as well.

And these are the full time professionals!

Think how difficult it is for your local business owners to understand and use social media part time amidst renewing their leases, ordering their Spring merchandise, hiring and training staff, and fighting with the tax man.

In today’s media world, you can be a genius, literally. Alfred Einstein defined genius as “Making the complicated look simple.”

Radio account executives can offer simple turnkey solutions to local advertiser’s problems. All the advertiser has to do is say “yes”, and you do the rest.

You analyse the advertiser’s situation with your CNA (customer needs analysis), you create a strategy based upon that analysis, and implement tactics from creating effective schedules within the advertiser’s budget, to creating and producing messages to increase their sales.

So there you have it, genius. In the knowledge economy, knowledge is currency, and you are perfectly positioned to help your clients solve their advertising problems with simple turnkey solutions.

Never under-estimate the value of the solutions you deliver.

Click here to arrange a no obligation demo of how we can help you be a genius in your market in 2015 and beyond

How popular would Santa be without his smile and his Ho…Ho…Ho?

And how famous would the Mona Lisa be had she been painted with a frown instead of that knowing smile?

Studies in neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology all confirm the powerful of influence of smiles.

Telephone solicitors know that their closing ratios actually improve if they smile during their pitch even though the person on the other end of the conversation can’t see their smile. If you can make your customers smile, you are actually more likely to make a sale.

British researchers found that one smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate.  And, unlike lots of chocolate, lots of smiling can actually make you healthier. Smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, increase the level of mood-enhancing hormones like endorphin and reduce overall blood pressure.

And if that’s not enough, smiling can actually make you look good in the eyes of others. A recent study at Penn State University found that when you smile, you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous, but you actually appear to be more competent.

Radio is the smile media. From uplifting music, to fun on-air contests and the humorous voice of personalities, we make your customer’s smile every day. What a great environment in which your advertisers can tell their story!

Do you smile for both of your customer groups? Your external customers,  i.e., your advertisers, and your internal customers….the people you have to work with at the station to get the job done.?

Why do so many radio ‘package’ offerings default to discounting their spot rates?

Smart packagers create premium packages as a way of taking the focus off of their base product pricing.

Take BMW, for example. When BMW offers their ‘sport package’, customers do not question the basic BMW price, and are left to negotiate on the much more profitable ‘options’ portion of the sport package.

Each option, like sport wheels, spoilers, tuned suspension, sport seats, steering wheel and low profile tires, by themselves cost a fortune.  But as a ‘package’, you get all of them at a discount while paying full pop for the base automobile.

In radio, our station promos, digital properties, sponsor credits, on-air contests and other elements of our programming should actually be priced with huge margins because they are not perceived as ‘commercials’ or programming interruptions by the listening audience.

When you ‘package’ this high-margin inventory at a discount rate, you can take the focus off of discounting the spot rates in your ‘package’.

The packaging guidelines we use at all of the stations we consult include;

1.) All packages should be priced at a minimum of ten percent over your average invoice price. The amount of your average invoice tells you what your clients, the market and most importantly, your sales people think your station is worth.

Why go to all of the trouble of creating a special package if it can’t give you a lift to that value?

2.) All packages include brand sell commercials for the advertiser at full rate, with only the added value being discounted.

It’s well known that you do establish your image, in part, with your pricing policy. Of course the quality of any product, the service the seller delivers, and the convenience of the buying process all play a role in the image, but pricing is a key player in the marketing mix.

Is there really twice as much time and material invested in building a Mercedes versus a Hyundai, or does premium pricing play a role in the image of Mercedes?

And more importantly, which car do you think has the highest profit margins?

Maybe it is time radio started creating premium packages?

As we approach the end of another year, you’ll start to hear all kinds of predictions about what 2015 will bring.

Here is my prediction…
Sales people who know how to prospect will have a hugely successful 2015.

Why? There is a radio renaissance awaiting radio sales professionals who know how to help advertisers get results.

Many advertisers who leap-frogged from print (newspaper, yellow pages, direct mail etc.) to the shiny new digital offerings are now becoming disillusioned.

These advertisers jumped on digital, in part, because it was “accountable” or “measurable”

But now, they’re beginning to realize they can’t pay their mortgages with likes and they can’t send their kids to college with page views. Of course, the internet plays a valuable role in any marketing mix, but your 2015 prospects are discovering they can’t win hearts and minds with the internet alone.

Their frustrations are compounded by Google changing the SEO rules daily, Facebook now charging for what used to be free, and emerging digital platforms creating unprecedented online audience fragmentation.

On top of all of these rapid changes, the dark side of digital is beginning to take its toll. SPAM, click farms, fraudulent page views and SEO and SMM con artists are causing many advertisers to wish for ‘the good old days’.

But the good old days are not coming back. These disillusioned advertisers know it’s not feasible to go back to print.

The radio account executives who know how to prospect these disgruntled advertisers and show them how radio can be the ‘new media’ in an effective media mix with internet will have a huge 2015.

Click here to arrange a telephone consultation to discuss how ENS Media can help your team capture prospects in 2015.