“I TRIED RADIO, AND IT WORKED!” A ByrnesMedia Guest Article Clyde Ross In our continuing quest for more revenue and new revenue streams we tend to look to familiar practices such as developing NTR categories, new sales promotion concepts, internet opportunities, added-value incentives, and a variety of deep discount programs designed to introduce new clients to the station… and so on. However there is one big lucrative opportunity sitting right under our collective noses that we tend to overlook, and that’s simply making radio advertising consistently more effective, or in the vernacular of our customers, making it “work”.
Making radio “work” pays large dividends. Your customer’s business grows, it fosters customer loyalty and it builds station revenues. I can think of three station success stories right off the top where single client revenues grew from $2,000 annually to $32,000, from $4,000 annually to $44,000, and from $10,000 annually to $162,000 all as a result of the salesperson’s understanding of the customers business and of how to apply radio to the customer’s best advantage. Pretty nice growth, and in each case no additional cost of sale incurred.
How often have we heard the infamous statement; “I tried radio, and it didn’t work”? We’ve all heard it and far too often. Entry level salespeople hear it their first week on the street. Frankly, if radio didn’t “work” then it wouldn’t be a $1.2 billion industry in Canada annually. I really don’t think that Canadians would invest that amount of money in something that didn’t “work” (politicians being the exception perhaps).
It’s interesting though how the question of whether it “works” or “doesn’t work” seems to get tied to radio more so than any other medium. Have you ever wondered why that is? It’s because we create lots of failures! It’s not radio that creates the failures, it’s we who sell for radio that do. When clients are disappointed with radio it’s not a function of the medium, it’s a function (or dysfunction) of how we’ve applied radio to our customer’s fundamental needs.
Over time I came to understand that there were a number of variables, six to be exact, that determined the success or failure of my customer’s advertising. Five that we could exercise control over and one that we couldn’t – the Weather (a two foot snowfall overnight has a way of dampening the consumer’s enthusiasm for attending your customer’s sale event).
Radio advertising will fail when one or more of the following exists; scheduling is inadequate, targeting is misdirected, the budget is inadequate, the advertising objectives (expectations) are unclear, or when the creative simply misses the mark. To ensure success for both my customer and myself I developed a diagnostic tool that would give me a quick read on the customer’s condition in these areas.
I call the tool the "Five Key Variables." It’s a line of questioning focused on the five variables that we can control. The five variables are Timing (Business Cycle), Targeting, Annual Advertising Budget, Objectives and Creative Considerations. With this core information you can very quickly start formulating strategies and recommendations that can effectively produce a positive return on your customer’s investment with your radio station, and by definition, establish in the customer’s mind that radio “works”.
Here’s a look at the Five Key Variables in short form: Timing is the customer’s business cycle. Knowing their cycle tells us what the customer’s primary scheduling requirements are. Targeting is simply with whom the customer needs to communicate. We want to know who most important is (Primary Target Group), and who second most important is (Secondary Target Group). This essentially determines whether or not your station is a fit. Annual Adverting Budget is the next of the required information. Not everyone agrees with asking the budget question but I recommend it. You want to know if in fact the customer has adequate budget to achieve (the next variable) their advertising objectives.
Knowing the customer’s Objectives is critical. Basically we want to know what our customer’s expectations are of their advertising – what they want to achieve. By knowing what they are, we now have a better read on scheduling requirements and how to best utilize the available budget. Last but not least is the Creative Considerations. This is simply determining what the customer needs to communicate and how it is to be communicated. This is an area that always deserves more attention than we tend to give it.
Is this information all that we need to know about our customer? Absolutely not! But as I said earlier it’s the core information that we should have on each of them. The success or failure of the advertising they do with you hinges on your knowledge of these Five Key Variables as they relate to their business. This knowledge will build both the customer’s business and that of the radio station.
The question as to whether radio “works” or “doesn’t work” is, in my view, absurd. With all of its inherent strengths as an advertising medium, how can it not work? It’s more a question of how we apply radio in relation to the customer’s business reality.
We can probably all agree that the chances of hearing someone actually state “I tried radio and it “worked!” are, to say the very least, pretty slim. They won’t say it, but they will acknowledge it simply by doing more business with us, and in many cases a lot more business.
If you’d like more information on the "Five Key Variable" tool and how to use it to the mutual advantage of you and your customers call ByrnesMedia at (905) 332-1331. |