3-23-2014
It was a bizarre set of circumstances that caused me to succeed during my formative years as an account executive. None of the business owners on whom I made sales calls had the money to buy any advertising beyond the radio schedule I sold them on my tiny little station. If my ads worked, I got the credit. If they didn?t work, I got the blame. I was never part of a media mix. Let me qualify ?tiny little station? for you. We had a (12+) weekly cume of 18,000 in a market of a million people. Our average quarter hour hovered between 500 and 800 persons.
I proposed 52-week schedules exclusively.
My theory was that 18,000 people each week were enough to make a big difference. But I didn?t pitch my audience as anyone?s ?perfect target.? I?d say, ?After a few months you?ll be a household word among 18,000 evangelists and ambassadors for your brand. And according to Joe Girard, the author of How to Sell Anything to Anybody, the average American has a ?realm of association? of 250 friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members that know them well enough to call them by their first name. If we impress my audience deeply enough that each of them mentions you to just 10 percent of their friends, that?s 450,000 people. Don?t worry about who you?re reaching. Just rock their world with a message that?s absolutely worth repeating. Now what are we going to tell these 18,000 people that will rock their world??
That wasn?t a sales pitch. I believed it with my whole heart.
The ads worked, my clients thrived, and I got famous.
So why do I never see stories ? not even in Radio Ink ? about the success of businesses that buy no media other than radio?
I?ll suggest four possible answers to my own question, and you tell me if you agree:
1. Account executives are being taught to pitch their audience as ?the perfect target? for the advertiser. When the pitch to an advertiser revolves around whether or not your audience is ?perfect,? the pressure will be squarely on your station to deliver that ?perfect audience,? regardless of how limp and pointless the advertiser?s message might be.
2. Few people have the courage to pitch 52-week schedules, so they take whatever handouts they can get. Most of these schedules will deliver sufficient shortterm frequency, but they fall short in critical ways: A) The product or service has a long selling cycle and the schedule isn?t long enough. It delivers frequency without consistency. Consistency is the frequency of the frequency. There are many things that just can?t be sold quickly, regardless of the advertiser?s argument that ?someone out there is looking for this product right now.? B) Products with short selling cycles ? those things we?re always in the market for ? are being advertised in a way that is easily ignored. When is the last time an advertiser rocked your world?
3. Those AEs who are creating huge success stories are keeping them secret for the same reasons I rarely publish my own successes: They don?t want their clients being hassled. A number of years ago, I published a sparkling success story about an advertiser who used radio to grow his modest business into a juggernaut, with more than a 30-fold increase in annual revenue. It took only a few years and we used radio exclusively. And my client was immediately swamped with phone calls from account executives across America asking him to help them pitch their clients. One of them went so far as to say to him, ?You owe it to radio. Look at what radio has done for you.? Needless to say, I haven?t made that mistake again.
4. This one, I think, is the big one. Too few people in radio today can conjure great creative. Sadly, most of them don?t think it?s their job. The selling of radio seems to have gotten caught up in the data frenzy created by the Internet. Conversations seem to revolve around targets and metrics instead of offers and copy.
In the February 25, 2014 online version of Harvard Business Review was an article by Jake Sorofman and Andrew Frank, ?What Data-Obsessed Marketers Don?t Understand.? These are the opening paragraphs:
?Big data has become the X factor of modern marketing, the hero of every marketer?s story. But it?s a promise at risk of letting you down. You may be thinking that data will magically turn bush-league marketing into a winning ?Moneyball? performance. But that?s an artifact of our big data obsession. Data, alone, isn?t what makes marketing move the needle for business.
?Data can play a leading role in developing strategy and bringing precision to execution, but it does nothing ? absolutely nothing ? to stir motivation and create the desire that makes cash registers ring. Data is important, but it?s content that makes an emotional connection.?
I think somebody needs to recruit Sorofman and Frank into radio. These guys would make themselves and their employers a blistering fortune, and help hundreds of businesses succeed that otherwise probably would not.
Their message: ?It?s not about the numbers. It?s about the advertiser?s offer.?
Hallelujah, amen.
Roy H. Williams is president of Wizard of Ads Inc. E-mail: roy@wizardofads.com.
(3/24/2014 3:18:08 PM)
Mike makes the sincere assumption that "deals" and "calls to action" are necessary. They are not. In fact, those calls-to-action are elements that contribute to burning audiences down.
Anncr: "Make your best deal today!"
Audience member: "Eat my shorts!"
Meanwhile, "leo" calls for the creative types to pull it out and get on with generating some hi-calibre spots. My question: Are there any folks who can do that left wandering the halls or hammering out the hype...? At radio stations, I mean.
These comments are fightin' words! Radio AEs and producers across America, rise up to write "rock the world" copy and present all 52's.
(3/24/2014 1:06:48 PM)
Example of a limp and pointless message... A few years ago a local car dealer had a TV commercial that has to be one of the worst examples ever. No deals, no call to action. They did mention the dealers name a few times. Just a couple guys walking through a corn field, talking about having the lowest prices "at my stores". They didn't mention that they sell cars. If not watching the screen at the end of this boring spot, one might think they were talking about a grocery store.
(3/24/2014 10:07:37 AM)
Indeed, to find horrible examples of the dregs of professional communications, one need only dial up any local radio station.
More compelling copy can be found on the bulletin boards of neighborhood laundromats.
Exceptions are the exceptions, so to speak.
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businesses need time. They need time to grow. They need time to market. They need time to be agile and adjust to the fast-moving consumer who wants this thing today and that gadget tomorrow. Pandora, while wildly successful today, launched back in 1999. It would be many years - and a name change - before Pandora would become the audio juggernaut it is today. Will NextRadio be the app that puts Radio on every smartphone in America? Time will tell. For now, the service has the backing of Sprint, and most of radio's biggest broadcast companies. Consumers appear to like the app once they know its available. Will saving data become the driving factor that helps catapult the app to the masses? Hard to know. For sure, if radio stations do what they do best - offer great content - the app will continue to grow. To get you up to speed heading into the NAB show in Las Vegas, here's an interview with Emmis' Chief Technology Officer Paul Brenner.
