As "Loyal" As Jerry

All good radio sales people have two common characteristics:  One, they want to make as much money for themselves as possible.  Two:  They want to help you program the radio station.

If you're tired of trying to explain why you can't play a sales-staffer's favorite new song, suggest they watch the Tom Cruise movie "Jerry Maguire". 

Cruise is driving down the road after closing a big deal.  While he's driving, he hits the scan button repeatedly, looking for a song he's passionate about.  He finds a few tunes that he likes, but it's not until he finds one that he knows every word of that he finally takes his hand off the radio.  He's found a song he's passionate about.  And because he has, he' sticking with that station.

As Thor Kolner, who did marketing for us 15 years ago preached, you want your listeners to respond to your radio station the same way Cruise does to that station in the movie.  To do that, you need to play songs that listeners are passionate about.  Finding those songs isn't always easy.  It takes a lot of work and experience.  The stations that don't play the right music, are the ones listeners like Jerry Maguire pass over.

But if the music experts in your sales department still insist on telling you what songs to add, just remind them:  It's passionate listeners who respond best to the advertising messages they're selling.

And besides, "Jerry McGuire" may be listening.

Passion

Bob Pittman is telling Wall Street in his usual cheer-leading style that it's time for "a new life for radio." 

Meanwhile, CBS' Les Moonves is bullish on radio as-is, it seems.  And, their stock price certainly makes it look like he knows what he's talking about.

There's no sense taking sides in the battle of publicly-traded companies in their efforts to tout their stocks.  That's a very profitable business in itself, and reinvention or not, it's not radio to me.

The great thing about talking to our clients, local radio people, every day is that I never seem to have time to dwell on that.

Instead, I am reminded every day how passionate worker bees in thousands of communities are, as they work with passionate creative artists, music promotion executives, advertisers and our equally passionate listeners.

For example, just today....

In telling Country Aircheck's Chuck Aly about next Friday’s Taylor Swift Worldwide Radio Remote (10/26), Big Machine's John Zarling said of Swift: 

“She’ll spend six hours on the 26th talking to radio. She’s spent 20 hours in the last two days doing national radio interviews. And there have been countless media days around the world in the last month. She works harder than anybody to make all this come together.  It just shows Taylor’s conviction and continued engagement with radio, and how much she believes in radio as a way to reach fans.”

KIRO/Seattle's Linda Thomas just blogged

"How could my dream job get any better? It just did.  Here's the funny thing about a new dream coming true. It's exciting and it's frightening.  Creating unique stories for Bonneville Seattle's traditional and new media platforms is my full-time job. A little fear is a good thing. All the interesting stuff happens when we step outside our comfort zones."

Catch me tomorrow and I'll have even more fresh, new stories about what happens when passionate content creators engage listeners.

If you're inside a radio station and not just a corporate office somewhere, I'll bet you can do the same.

Grab some passion and spread it around!

Where To Go From "Perfect?"

I've been listening to a lot of country radio morning personalities lately, as last week's "The Perfect Morning Show" recapped.

For most of us, the quickest path to success is to follow that kind of blueprint, designed to make a lot of local people like you personally by making listeners a big part of everything you do.

Once you've accomplished that, there's a different path which only a very few manage to take, that can create extraordinary long term market dominance.

Make the kind of folks who don't "live" in your community hate you.

That's the only way to take "like" to "love" for the majority of folks who live in your town, and it's a risky path, requiring deep knowledge of local values combined with a degree of unquestioned personal authenticity.

Before you testify to your personal faith journey, question whether Whitney Houston deserves flags to be flown at half-staff or create your own make-believe brand of beer, you must really get to know your own passions as well as those of the majority of your target listeners.

Or, simply take a risk and hope that it works.

Odds are, with that approach, you'll fail, but if you don't, you'll go from "striving for perfection" to "exceptional."

Not many of us have the courage to climb that high or the ability to do it every day, which is why the ones who do so and make it work have audience shares which very few build and maintain.

“That’s Great! .. BUT...”

“How did they do it?” a client PD asked me last week.

“Do what?” I innocently inquired.

“How did those folks at WAXX, Eau Claire, get more than 600 of their listeners to do the questionnaire and we’re a bigger market but we only had just over 300.”

A&O client stations are competitive. I suppose that’s one reason why they hire us.

They want to have the latest intelligence and access to cutting-edge strategies and tactics. They love winning.

Rarely, however, do they have a chance to compete with each other and have every other client see the ‘score.’

And, I didn’t even know that this was a competition!

So far, more than 17,000 listeners across the U.S. and Canada have completed the “Roadmap ’08” national perceptual study (highlights of which will be unveiled at our Pre-CRS client seminar) a preliminary report on the results of the study went out to all of the stations who participated the other day.

It includes P-1 listener tracking data on more than 40 areas, from music style and genre preferences, content, information, new media usage, overall satisfaction and HD radio.

I was surprised to find that almost everyone who received it turned past the product and usage-related responses to the pages which detailed the sample sizes for each market which will allow us to break local data for out every station with at least 200 respondents. Everyone seemed to want to see how many of their listeners completed the 20 minute questionnaire compared to other cities of similar size.

The PD who made the statement’s station ranks #1 12+ and 25-54 in a situation where an aggressive direct format competitor ranks #5 in the Fall ARB survey, so I have long considered this programmer a winner and a big success I often point with pride to.

But, in his mind, he still needs to do better.

“We do contests and they do well for us, but then I see how the great Lincoln Financial Media team at KSON, San Diego, made “Double Your Paycheck” more than just a contest. They turned it into a statement of values the station stands for,” he started.

“Then, Pattison’s CJJR, Vancouver, “Tripled Your Pay” last Fall and had a terrific BBM.

“We also do a St. Jude’s Radiothon and raised lots of money for the great cause again this year, but then I saw how the Bonneville/Cincinnati crew at B-105 had their listeners pledge $415,361,” he continued.

“I look at loyalty rewards marketing stars like Larche Media/Barrie’s KICX, Morris Radio’s WIBW-FM, Topeka and Astral’s CFQX, Winnipeg driving thousands of new database signups. We, of course, do a similar program, yet I seem to run into the same 40 people who come to every remote broadcast for their ‘word on the street.’

“CBS Radio’s KMPS, Seattle, continues to dominate their market by innovating. I love their new “Yes.com” social network where they invite listeners to vote for their favorite songs and network with other listeners. How did they do that?”

Sensing that this very competitive programmer didn’t just want me to pat him on the back and say “hey, you’re #1, you’re clearly aware of those things other clients are doing and that’s a good thing, perhaps a bit of healthy sibling rivalry.

“You’re holding yourself to too high a standard, take it easy on yourself. You are really, really good at lots of things, but you can’t possibly be the absolute best at everything..,” so instead, I decided to simply remind him of the “Seven Magic Words,” which by the very questions he’s been asking me, whether he knows it or not, already show that he’s living them.

Being competitive myself, I wish I could say that they were my invention, but Mike O’Malley coined this useful seven word phrase years ago, when we did our first air personality seminar on the Boardwalk in Atlanta City. We called that session “Barnumizing Your Radio Station And Your Show.”

We taught attendees and still encourage our client stations to use the principles of P. T. Barnum. Never forget we’re in show business. Whatever you do, don’t just amplify it.

Explode it.

Plan each community service event, prep each content break, build each promotion, create each stunt, communicate each strategy and just when you feel that it’s your best, before finalizing it use the Seven Magic Words and see how far you can go with whatever you’re doing.

The words?

“Great! .. but what else could we do?”

Use them the next time your team brainstorms. Pretty soon, you’ll be the envy of your siblings too.