Tag Archives: Radio

Take Responsibility for ‘No’

You need to take responsibility when a prospect says ‘No’ to your presentation.

          Busy decision makers do not take time to make an appointment to see your presentation unless they have an interest in what you have to offer. When they do take time to see you, but turn down your proposal, you have either misdiagnosed their situation and objectives during your Customer Needs Analysis (CNA), or your presentation missed the mark.

          We review hundreds of radio presentations every month to help our station clients create better presentations and improve their closing ratios.

          Often your presentation misses the mark because of the lack of use of power- words. We reviewed one presentation this week, for example, where the heading on the last page was ‘Suggested Spend’.

          It would have been much more powerful to say ‘Recommended Investment.’

          A recommendation is stronger than a suggestion, and everyone would rather invest than spend.

         Paying careful attention to your use of language and power words in your presentations can be one of the steps in creating more successful

presentations.
Your presentations also need to address your prospects conversationally, and directly. That same presentation we reviewed read, ‘Advertisers should…..’ where it should have read ‘You should….’ speaking more directly to the client rather than to all advertisers generically.

P.S. Have you found these free weekly ENS on Sales tips helpful? If so, we’re asking a favor in return.

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Wayne Ens
705-484-9993

It Ain’t Gonna Sell Itself

So you think your advertisers are flocking to social media? Maybe not.  Maybe social media salespeople are flocking to them.

Twitter, for example, invested a whopping 44% of their revenue in marketing and sales to capture a 111% revenue increase last year.

 Now, I’m not suggesting for a minute that broadcasters should have a 44% cost of sale. But you almost certainly are not going to experience sales increases by cutting your marketing and sales investments.

The good old days of only competing with a few local stations and the local paper are long gone.  Your prospects are being sold by the marketing automation software folks, social media salespeople, web designers, SEO folks, Google AdWords, and many more from around the globe every week.

 Click on this link to see what other publicly held companies are investing in marketing and sales

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2015/28343/how-much-do-public-companies-spend-on-marketing-and-sales-infographic?adref=nlt082815

 Local radio is not going to sell itself.

          And….I know that you know the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

What are you doing to increase your sales in 2016?

Our suite of  revenue-development products, from local Top of Mind Awareness surveys to our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system, is helping stations across North America to increase their sales.

Contact [email protected] to discuss how we can build a custom revenue solutions program to increase your sales in 2016.
Sincerely,
Wayne Ens
705-484-9993

A No-Brainer to Increase Your Sales

Imagine you own a local business, and you have a salesperson who has developed great customer relationships and helped to build your business.

 Then picture what you would do if another salesperson offered to join your company and bring with them their great customer relationships and database.

 Would you terminate your current sales person in favor of hiring the new sales person, or would you increase your sales even more by keeping both salespeople?

 I think the answer is a no-brainer. We know more feet on the street equals more sales and why would you sacrifice one sales source to attract another? You would invariably have both salespeople go to work for you.

 Advertising is merely multiplied salesmanship, permitting advertisers to make more ‘sales calls’ and reach more people than their salespeople alone can reach on a regular basis.  But almost on a daily basis we’re hearing from radio salespeople who tell us some of their clients are abandoning their radio campaigns in favour of social media.

 Even more ludicrous, we’re hearing that some advertisers say they don’t notice a drop off in business when they abandon their radio audiences.

 If they terminated one of their salespeople who had a loyal following, they wouldn’t notice an immediate drop in sales either. Depending upon their product and sales cycle it could take months, or even years, before the marketplace learned where that sales person went or that they had left.

 The effect of having two media working in tandem can be even more powerful than having two salespeople because there may not be synergies between salespeople, but there are huge synergies between media.

 Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the power of synergies when he said, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The impact of a multimedia campaign, like radio and social media, is certainly greater than the impact of one media alone.

 And unfortunately for advertisers who abandon tried and proven radio, there is another force at work in advertising called momentum. The momentum they built with radio doesn’t quit the moment they leave radio, but by the time they realise they’re losing momentum it may be too late, or very expensive, to regain it.

 Our Local Share-of-Mind Surveys are proving the power of radio in markets across North America and are helping radio sales executives to increase their local-direct sales.

 To learn how we can help increase your sales contact [email protected]

 

[email protected]

An Ounce of Prevention

So one of your biggest accounts has just announced they intend to cut some of their traditional media in favor of digital. They currently use outdoor, radio, newspaper and TV in their traditional media portfolio.

How much time and effort will you invest to present your stations to avoid becoming one of the victims of the pending cuts?

Allow me to share a hidden truth in pending cuts… long before that cut-back announcement was made the client was already forming hard to change perceptions on which media they should cut.

          ‘Preventive maintenance’ is always more effective, and less costly, than ‘damage control.’

          Do you have a preventive maintenance program or does all of your energy go into making the sale, looking for new business, and damage control?

          A well-planned system of regularly thanking your customers, a continuous education system like our SoundADvice highlighting broadcasts’ relevance, and regular post campaign analysis and wrap up reports can put you in the driver’s seat when advertisers hungry for change begin to wield their cut-back knives.

          If you’re surprised by a cancellation or cutback, it’s probably because you didn’t have a preventive maintenance program.

 

[email protected]

Radio Revenue Increases

This July 24th article in Media Life asks, “What’s behind Radio ad spending gains?”

 Could it be that advertisers are finding the glitter on the shiny new media is not yielding gold?  Businesses that have built strong brands with broadcast media, don’t lose those brands the instant they cut their broadcast. For a period of time, ‘cheaper’ digital can coast on the coat tails of the success broadcast has built for advertisers, but we all know that the only way to coast is down hill.

What’s Behind Radio Ad Spending Gains?
Up 5 percent in first quarter, led by fast food, telecom and auto

By Bill Cromwell

McDonald’s is one of the top fast food spenders on radio.

Spot radio spending was up 5 percent in first quarter, according to Kantar Media.

This is a bit surprising, considering how badly other traditional media struggled during that same span. TV, magazines and newspapers were all down.

Radio has been getting strong spending from three major ad categories that have helped lift the medium to start the year, following a down 2014 when spot radio declined by 5.1 percent.

Fast food, auto and telecom have all been strong to start the year.

“I think for the most part it is the tried and true advertisers that keep the medium afloat and allows stations to be creative with other advertisers because they’ve got that base laid in,” says Lisa Garofolo, director of broadcast at Empower MediaMarketing.

After an 11 percent decline last year for the restaurant category in radio, fast food has been more active during the first half of the year.

Buyers say this is in part to complement dollars spent on TV, since radio and TV work well in tandem for fast food restaurants.

“Radio is a nice complement to the video portion of a campaign,” Garofolo says.

“It’s great to see a McDonald’s commercial at 10 p.m. on Wednesday night, but if you want someone to have a McCafe on Thursday morning, you have to follow up [while they’re in the car].”

McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts remain the top advertisers in the category.

Automotive has spent consistently on spot radio the past few years, Garofolo says, following a big decline in 2009 and 2010 with the recession.

The Toyota Dealer Association has been driving much of that spending, ranking No. 7 overall among radio advertisers last year, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Honda and Ford’s dealer association are also active.

Finally, telecom has been hot across a number of media to start the year, including radio.

Overall ad spending on the category rose 3.8 percent in first quarter, according to Kantar, and buyers say wireless companies have been especially bullish on radio