Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Biggest SEO Mistake

We were consulting one of our station’s advertisers, a veterinarian, who proclaimed they had just made a considerable investment in SEO…Search Engine Optimization, to get them to or near the top of an online search.

We immediately went online and searched for veterinarians in that market. They were nowhere near the top of the search engine page despite their investment.

The veterinarian was both amazed and disappointed, responding with “We were near the top last week”!

There-in lies the problem. While she was paying to enter the race to the top, her competitors kept upping the ante to win that race…it’s a never-ending race to the top that can change at a moment’s notice.

The only way an advertiser can be assured they’ll be found online is when their prospects search for them by NAME!

But, the problem is even more complex than winning the SEO race to the top.

Internet Guru Seth Godin says, “it is better to be sought online than to be found”.

In other words, the business that has created a pre-need, pre-search brand and preference for their business will always win that race, in two ways:

1.)  They will be sought and subsequently found.

2.)  The best marketers will have built their brands before the search so that when their competitors are listed, their prospects will prefer to click on them.

3.)  Our local TOMA (Top-Of-Mind Awareness) studies consistently reveal:

A.)  Proactive broadcast media will always be more effective than reactive print or digital efforts in creating TOMA

B.)  Over 80% of the population in every market prefers to click on a site for a business they have heard of, rather than to go to a site of a business they are not familiar with.

Have your account executives been effective in helping advertisers understand why broadcast is the most powerful platform by which to create Top-Of-Mind Awareness and generate more web traffic?

If not, we should talk about initiating a TOMA survey in your market.

Roy Williams says, “I’ve long suggested that radio stations fund a TOMA study every two years. Few things are as valuable in the eyes of advertisers as these revealing market snapshots”.

Click here to arrange an online overview of how our TOMA Surveys and Training can help increase your local-direct sales.

Your Internal Marketing Plan

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?

 

 

The “Gift” of Gab

       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!

Are You Ready for Your Tomorrow, Today?

     Preparation is the key to success, right?  Abraham Lincoln understood the value of being prepared when he said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”  Will you be ready for your tomorrow before you leave the building tonight?

     Most of you reading this are in media management or sales, and if not, the rule of being prepared equally applies to everyone regardless of your profession. We certainly hope if we’re having a medical procedure tomorrow that the doctor is reviewing your charts and preparing today. The construction worker that knows what their tasks are tomorrow can order their materials and organize their tools before they leave tonight so they can hit the ground running in the morning. To be an effective manager or high performer in sales, you must be organized with better than average time management skills.

     How and when do you plan your tomorrow, or better yet, your next week?  Your Monday and Tuesday should be pretty clear before you leave the building on Friday.   If there are gaps, fill them in with prospecting or use that time to plan the rest of your week, sharpen your ax, so to speak.

     You can plan your week first thing on Monday morning or your Tuesday on Tuesday morning, but the mind is a funny thing.  If you plan it, write it down, and think about it, your brain will actually help you prepare in advance!

     Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

     Make it a habit, start preparing to plan your days and weeks…in advance! Never leave today, until you are prepared for tomorrow!  It’s a GOOD plan.

P.S.  If you are preparing to look for ways to grow your revenue in 2018 and beyond. ENS Media would honor the opportunity to visit with you about our programs that not only generate revenue but help train your sales team well into the future. It’s a good plan!

Click here if you would like to learn more about these amazing revenue-generating systems.

Quit Calling It “Direct Mail”

You’ve probably seen the latest BIA Kelsey data that radio is the sixth-highest used advertising platform today, with “direct mail” being the number one advertising platform in terms of advertising expenditures.

In telling radio’s story, we have to educate advertisers about the miss-use of the term “direct mail”.

Direct mail is mail that is addressed and sent “directly” to a known person’s address.

The advertising that is delivered to households indiscriminately is better defined as “mass mail” or is commonly referred to as “junk mail”.

The reasons radio account executives need to make that distinction are many.

First, your advertisers and prospects are hearing at their trade conferences and reading in their trade magazines about the “success” of direct mail. And it’s true, direct mail by nature works because it’s sent directly to a prequalified known prospect.  Smart radio account executives encourage their clients to use real direct mail in the media mix because today, it’s FREE.

In the old days, advertisers had to compensate printing shops, paper mills, delivery trucks or the post office to produce and deliver their direct mail.

Today, direct mail is literally free via permission-based email….no envelopes, no printing presses, no postage stamps.

Don’t let your advertisers return from their conferences all hyped up about direct mail only to end up sending what’s really junk mail…sent via indiscriminate household “flooding”.

Click here to arrange an on-line demo of how our local TOMA surveys and SoundADvice radio e-marketing system are helping radio station account executives prove the ineffectiveness of junk mail, and the effectiveness of a broadcast and permission-based e-mail campaign.