Studying The Target

“Focus,” as author Al Ries (and his daughter in the years since) has been preaching (he wrote a great book on it) is the key to owning a category in a prospect’s mind. 

Also, the focus needs to be on the needs of the user not the product you’re hoping to sell. 

That starts by getting to know who it is you want to listen to your radio station.

Otherwise, you're guilty of "fire, ready. aim."

Odds are you are either younger or older than they are.  So, what can you do to create a reality-based picture that will prove to be effective?

• Join a local service club that attracts members of your target.
• Volunteer at a local charity as a worker.
• Join a church, synagogue or other religious organization. 
• Take a course at an adult school (not college).
• Talk to listeners on Facebook, Twitter and other social nets and get involved in the activities the folks who are your target age care about.
• Take a day “off” the air and live like your listener does.
• Visit places where they work.
• Go to lunch where your listeners go.  Not just one time, just routinely.

Look for folks who listen to your radio station and get to know them.

Live the demo.

Maintain the sympathetic reaction for consistent listenership.

Have a staff meeting and assign everyone to do these things.

Then, reconvene to talk as a group about what everyone observed and learned.

What more can everyone do to become a “real” companion?

After completing these steps, you're ready to aim and then "fire."

Creating A Positive Brand Image

In radio, while the image of ‘just doing good for the community’ is seldom sufficient to win the ratings race for a station (especially in PPM markets where actual usage trumps all), the positive passion and powerful emotions that strong community involvement generate CAN often improve audience loyalty and station memorability.

Once we get beyond musical images, is there anything more important than being the station that helps kids or wounded vets?

In fact, there is.

Of course, doing a radiothon or a personality trip to a needy part of the world to dramatize the urgent need for them to lend a hand is often seen as a great way to activate your community and be experienced as a truly well-rounded Country station.

Savvy programmers understand that raising a large amount of money can require programming tactics which harm audience retention even as they build a brand.


Of course, in the long run, it is worth it and I encourage you to weave doing big things for your community into the fabric of everything you do year round, but there's another - often forgotten - way to achieve powerful brand depth without sacrificing a single quarter hour of listening or one cume listener.

It's simply being as responsive to everything your listeners care about in brief, meaningful ways all the time.

Get involved.  Share their stories.  Help.  Provide leadership.  It's what radio - voice tracked or live and local - does best, every day.

"Broadcast Radio Continues To Strongly Dominate Listening"

Pardon me, if I join Katz in bragging a bit this morning:

“The latest findings bear out what we continue to find from all our research – and hear from consumers – that broadcast radio is still by far the overwhelming leader in audio listening,” said Mary Beth Garber, EVP/Radio Analysis and Insights at Katz Radio Group.  “Broadcast radio isn’t losing listeners – in fact just the opposite, which makes it clear that digital listening actually represents incremental listening.  So as digital listening – which is both AM/FM digital listening and personal music collection digital listening – continues to grow, it is an expansion of broadcast radio listening, additive to it rather than a substitute.  Research from Infinite Dial 2012 shows that digital listeners are also heavy broadcast users (3); digital extends the reach and popularity of broadcast radio to new devices and new listening opportunities. We're pleased with digital's growth and how it has added to the broadcast radio experience.”

Garber continued, “A digital-only ‘music collection’ audio service like Pandora only has 4.4% of total audio listening, even if you assume the Triton measurement of when the service is left on is comparable to the measurement of actual listening that Arbitron does.  That said, even though it is still a relatively small percentage of all listening, we remain excited about the role of digital listening in extending radio listening to new devices, further enhancing radio's role as the major mobile entertainment and information service to the consumer.”

In the most recent RADAR findings, the gold standard measurement system for radio, which measure national listening behavior from October 2011 to September 2012, broadcast radio continues to strongly dominate listening – reaching 243 million listeners per week and representing 92.4% of all listening (1).  In comparison, digital listening currently represents only 7.6% of all audio listening (2).

(1) RADAR 115 (Dec 2012, for period Oct 11 - Sep 12
(2) RADAR 115 (for period Oct 11 – Sep 12); Triton Digital Audio Top 20, Oct 11 – Sep 12;
(3) Infinite Dial 2012 

Coincidentally, that news comes this week just as Canada's entire Astral Radio group gets ready for their annual "Have a Heart” Radiothon events in every one of their markets.  This annual 12-hour live broadcast calls upon listeners to help raise much-needed funds to support care for young patients, enable the acquisition of new specialized pediatrics equipment and provide parents with support services.  This year's will run from 6am to 6pm Thursday May 2nd and one hundred percent of the money raised during this nation-wide one-day event will stay in Astral communities to help babies and kids.

Actually, now that I think of it, there is no coincidence.  

Radio everywhere routinely does large and small things for our communities.  

The announcement could have come ANY day, and there would be many things to point to that radio's dedicated public servants are doing somewhere.

"Don't sell the ratings. Sell the reasons you HAVE those ratings,."
   - Mary Beth Garber

AMEN.

Going Over The Top For The Community

As usual, when it's time to do a little bit more for Boy Scouts and thousands of other worthy causes, radio - as represented by Cat Country 98.7/Pensacola's morning guy Brent Lane, is the first one to volunteer (click to watch the WEAR-TV video of the event).

Of course, Gannett's News-Journal was there to cover it too.

Lane termed Friday's stunt: "a top 3 adrenaline rush of a life time."

It's such a source of pride in seeing radio's people and all media working together both up in the air and on the ground to help make a big difference in shared positive values.

Please let me know what YOU are doing in your home town too!

RBR: Banks Could Use Some Help From Broadcasters

Jim Carnegie reports that federal officials are pressing banks to find and serve unbanked and underbanked people in their communities. But the first-ever national survey by the FDIC finds that most banks aren’t having much success. One reason is that many aren’t trying very hard, but the feds may change that by providing “oversight and guidance” to the banks – a euphemism for the heavy hand of government regulation. But this looks like an opportunity for broadcasters, particularly those serving minority communities, to help the banks help themselves avoid more government mandates.

The FDIC’s survey found that a majority of banks – 63% – offer basic financial education materials, but fewer participate in the types of outreach efforts that are viewed by the industry as most effective to attract and maintain unbanked and underbanked individuals as long-term customers.

Take a copy of the FDIC report along (posted as a pdf on this page) when you present your marketing plan to a local banker.

Detroit Radio Makes Me Proud

This is the extra special time of year when radio and TV stations across North America (and the world) stuff buses with food, operate toy drives, support food banks, raise cash, “adopt” families for Christmas and employ other ingenious methods of raising millions of dollars for their communities.

For example Canada's Broadcast Dialogue reports this week that private broadcasters north of the 49th - according to the CAB - were responsible for pledges and PSAs valued at $314.5 million over the past year while time donated by station employees was more than 230,000 hours.

.. which no doubt means that the promotional calendars of the CBS Radio Cluster were already full, when in the last few weeks the future of America's big three hung in the balance, Detroit newspapers announced that they will cut back the number of print publications, research emerged that auto advertisers should cut back on TV and ramp up radio, Detroit Radio stepped up. Click on WYCD's web page and watch the video "Stand Up And Be Proud."

.. and, be proud.

What Makes It All Worthwhile

Brent Lane of WYCT (Cat Country 98.7), Pensacola's got decked up in a turkey suit yesterday, (click to watch it) and the heck what for?

"All Cat Country tonight on every newscast...," he brags.

Nice to see a guy whose priorities are in order! (smile)

We Need A Little Christmas Right Now

The Holiday Season this year is going to be difficult.

We are so fortunate in the radio business that we touch people intimately, personally and are in a position to make a positive difference in their lives every day.

Please take 20 minutes and watch this video (click to view and listen. You will want to watch it again and again!) from Bill Moyers Journal with Mark Johnson, the producer of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music.

Start brainstorming now. What more could YOU and YOUR STATION do - to bring people together in our local communities during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and November-December Holidays to "inspire each other" and "make a difference together?"

Kudos To WYCD, Doing What Radio Does Best

99.5 WYCD/Detroit is throwing a birthday party for injured Capac Police Chief Raymond Hawks. The Capac Chief was involved in a widely publicized gun shooting incident and was in critical condition in a Detroit Hospital.

Last Friday morning on WYCD’s Dr Don Morning Show, Dr Don, Rachael Hunter and Steve Grunwald played the 911 call from Chief Hawks and discussed the events that led to his shooting. They sadly noted that Chief Hawks spent his 61st birthday in a drug-induced coma in Port Huron Hospital and started getting a strong reaction from the audience. Dr. Don said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could throw him the birthday party he missed once he gets out of the hospital?” And, with that, an idea was born.

Over the course of the rest of the program, Michigan businesses and citizens tied up the phone lines volunteering goods and services to make the coming home/birthday party for Chief Hawks a reality. After donating his establishment as a venue for the event, Coyote Joe’s owner Joe Hellebuyck said, “I’m a member of the Fraternal Order of Police and it bothered me greatly to hear what had happened to Chief Hawks. My family and I are praying for his speedy recovery.” Coyote Joe’s is located in Shelby Township.

“The outpouring of support for this brave and beloved man is absolutely outstanding,” said WYCD’s Dr Don Carpenter. “Motor City residents are anxious to show this man their gratitude for putting his life on the line.”

WYCD has already contacted numerous country music stars in an attempt to find one who will perform at Chief Hawks’ birthday party. At the moment, there’s no date for the event. That will be decided once Hawks’ condition improves.