A Candid Admission

Last week, Seth Ressler in his AllAccess column hit me right between the ears.

Back when PPM first debuted, since I was long-schooled in the ways to get an unfair advantage to grab "just one more share point" that we all used in diary measurement, I was focused on the wrong thing.
 
I still  wanted the sample size to be more random "like it used to be" and as large as the 48 different weekly samples.  The share compression that resulted from the move to panel measurement seemed to confirm (to me) that I was right and all the issues of PPM would be solved by larger and larger samples.

Call me a slow learner.

• The fact is that audio media simply can't afford to more than quadruple samples and of course both Arbitron and Nielsen have increased samples each time we squeaky wheels made those noises.
• The fact that the cume and usage levels are at all time highs right now makes a good case that we actually already have more than enough to compete adequately against all other media as is - selling results - no matter which of the three or four cume thresholds where the majority of stations clump in every market.

Of course, as Alfred Liggins said on his investor call last week, free market competition requires constant vigilance and if everyone else in town is doing something smart that you're not, you're likely to get hurt in the short run until you catch up.

Ultimately, I worry more that Programmatic buying and selling will be a greater challenge than mysterious black boxes as agencies adopt it in order to save money, failing to consider the compelling personality, brand loyalty, database, social, narrow target and psychographic data that only a human seller can present.

When that is accomplished our sales teams have great stories which more than add powerful value to our sales proposition.

Seth, you are right that our best story is not "how many?" but WHO.

Thanks for the clear thinking and wake up call.

Time For Programmers To Learn A New Language

This development is not at all surprising.

As usual, they want us to cut our inventories while refusing to pay anything more when we do it, in spite of considerable data proving radio's impact.

If the only way they will pay more is when "cost per point" hits media buyer wishes and dreams, it's crucial that the people creating content fully understand which quarter hours and programming tactics have the highest potential to get target GRPs, ultimately ARPs, as high as possible.

Let's stop worrying about 6+ average quarter hour shares, replacing those with the highest payoff target points.

That's an entirely new way to approach formatic, content and programming metrics.

It's going to require a quick learning curve for most Brand Managers, but A&O&B can help make it simple and very rewarding for you to do so.

A Pre-Book Competitive Overview

It's never too soon to audit yourself these days, since there's always "the nest book" just around the corner:          

• Evaluate key competitors’ positioning statements, claims, benchmarks and stationality.  Is there anything we need to defuse?
• How can we further maximize the strengths of our cluster to block and/or reposition our key competitors and those of our sister stations?
• What tactical/strategic outside media (TV, billboards, mail, stealth telemarketing) campaigns are we likely to be up against?  Will our programming/marketing arsenal be competitive and crippling?
• Are there new players?  Who are their consultants, programmers and companies?  Can we predict and “borrow” possible strategies, tactics, features and devices before they are aimed at us?
• When was the last time the most recent perceptual/strategic action plan was reviewed for compliance?  Is the on and off-air brain trust following the game plan?
• Has the programmer and marketing executives spent a day away from the station to critically listen and evaluate product performance?
• Prizes:  “dollar for dollar,” how are we likely to be remembered in the mind of the listener?  Is this a “hill” we even care about?
• What mechanisms are in place to insure we  seize “the moment/ big events” as they pop-up.  Are key community, industry, media (etc.) contacts in place?  Have we done a good job delegating the bases on the playing field so we won’t miss important opportunities?
• Is the station and the cluster’s Marketing Model (Target+Product+Position+Promotion) current, active and actionable?                                                                

The Format's Up, But You Went Down

Among the things more than three decades of consulting has taught me:  every market situation is different and every station within those markets is unique.

When a format is down nationally and your station or show is also off about the same percentage, it's not time to beat yourself up too much.  Music trends, events and buzz move up and down over time and of course it's possible for a great radio station's programmer to foresee those evolutions and adjust rotations and other non-music elements to compensate better than the average PD did.

That's what separates the cream of the crop.  Moving up when most other stations in your format feels good.  It takes a special skill set to understand what it takes to achieve it.  Consultants and researchers are very helpful in teaching what it takes to out-perform.

However, when everyone else in your format us up and you are down, that's the time when you really need to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you know what happened or if you need to call for expert assistance.

"Arbitron Ratings:  Radio audience figures, compiled with no basis in science or reason, used to fire Air Personalities."   — Gerry House (from “Glossary Of Terms” in “Country Music Broke My Brain”)

So, Seriously. Is Going To Do Anything About it?

Probably not.

Only the very courageous among us will want to take the risk of doing things differently in exchange for a potential payoff.  Old habits die hard.  BUT:  here's the payoff.

If we cut repetition complaints in half satisfaction could go even a few percentage points higher, driving better perceived TSL (diary measurement) and actual usage (PPM).

• The trade charts won’t do it.  The chart editors have been concerned about overnight and other “daypart” spins for many years and have certainly talked about ways to remove them from their charts, but there hasn’t been a subscription-supported trade magazine since the deaths of Bill and Janet Gavin.  Ads paid for by the very folks who also pay for the promotional tactics support them.
• Could they create two different charts, one for the higher level of spins that PPM appears to require and the other for diary markets where it's still possible to sustain 14 hours a week average TSL?  I wonder if PPM stations mixed in one monitored chart with diary markets hurts diary market stations that are drawn to increase their spins to dangerous levels given their longer TSL.  Most likely, even the stations wouldn't support this idea.  No one wants to be in the "smaller markets" group.
• Labels and publishers won’t do it. They all support the idea in principle, since it would save them promo expenditures which really don’t do very much to drive sales or familiarity, but they all fear that they’d be the only one to stop and would get beaten by competitors that continue.  This will be true as long as AM/FM radio spins are the #1 driver of music sales and, thank goodness for today’s radio, there appears to be no foreseeable end to that.
• Consolidated radio owners won’t do it.  Their debt drives everything they do and suggesting that giving up a few thousand dollars of their top line in order to fund marketing being paid for now for them by labels and indie promoters could get an exec fired.
• Your competition won’t do it.  They also fear that you’ll get the money they’d leave on the table if they did.
• Going back to “reporting” from a larger panel in place of monitored spins won’t do it.  Before monitored airplay, folks reported songs they didn’t actually play.

YOU will do it only when you’re convinced that carefully testing every recurrent spin to be sure it’s adding value for listeners.

YOU will do it only when you come up with better win/win ways to give value to your partners in the music business than burying songs you really know in your heart will never see the light of day on your playlist.  Commit to the songs and artists you believe in and give them meaningful spins when the majority of your audience is listening so that they you can build familiarity and solid test scores in fewer weeks.

YOU will do it when you see ratings growth by doing what listeners love and that is what I am confident will happen.

YOU will do it precisely because all of the others won't, and that's going to gain "someone" a power advantage.

After all, of the 8,874 folks who participated in A&O&B’s Roadmap 2014 listener survey the majority are very satisfied with the country radio they hear right now.  And, that number is trending up.  Of that total 1,336 say they are dissatisfied as a result of too much repetition.  15% of the total sample.

My proposition:  when your satisfaction levels and cume audience are at all time highs (more than double the level of any other negatives!) there is only one direction to go - down - unless you respond to the folks who aren’t happy in ways that don’t hurt you with current fans.

I think stations which take cutting "core dissatisfied" folks' repetition perception levels in half could see a 5-7% increase in usage.

Brand Depth

What drives big ratings success?

Major companies like McDonalds and Burger King, Apple and Microsoft, Coke and Pepsi, GM and Mercedes, etc. research various attribution categories to shine major light on pinpointing consumer perceptions in their respective industries and who their customers really are.
Building far above average rating shares that completely dominate a market aren't as simple as figuring out how many different listener perceived needs one radio station can fill, but thanks to two-decade-old data from Todd Wallace's Radio lndex "Winning Positions 2014" report it's certainly very possible to see how "owning" many programming attributes it took for one station to build a four book average #1 11.5 12+ share and a cume rating of 25.

This battle, of course, continues today, though under different owners that operated the two of them back then when the country format held more than an 18 share of total radio listening.

Wallace says "I believe one of the most useful and actionable displays is what we call a Perceptual Mosaic for each station, whereby all of the perceptual questions are collected and presented in rank-order form.

"This provides an interesting look at how the audience perceives how effective each station is in delivering each position.

"Because the questioning process includes the words "if any" ("Which radio station, if any, do you think plays the most music?"), each mosaic sums up the factors which are truly most important to the listener (as the specific attributes apply to each station)."

Hopefully, this report sparks a few new ideas on ways you can use attribution research to zero-in on positions that can make a difference in your battle(s), showing where you're hot and not.

If you'd like a free eight page report documenting Todd Wallace's Radio lndex "Winning Positions 2014" Attribution Research, Email-him and mention A&O&B.

Domination

In 1992. KNIX/Phoenix had a yearly four book average market-leading 11.5 share, driven by a 25 cume rating.  Arbitron estimated at the time that more than one in four people who listened to radio used KNIX, which had a very strong competitor in KMLE, whose cume rating was a more normal 15.8 and average quarter hour 12+ share was a yearly average 7.0!

How did KNIX engineer such powerful market shares in spite of having a really good competitor?

Normally, it's almost impossible to get a totally unbiased, data-driven answer to that question in real time because the owners, managers, programmers, consultants and researchers with the perspective to know the answer are bound by confidentiality since an ally in one situation may be the competition in another.

Phoenix-based researcher-consultant Todd Wallace has done hundreds of perceptual research projects throughout the U.S and Canada but because they are conducted exclusively for just one client in a market, he still cannot share that confidential information with anyone else. 

Back in the 90's, several of the biggest radio stations in Phoenix subscribed to a syndicated version of his "Radio Index" service which provided weekly ratings tracking and a series of Positioning Questions covering all manner of subjects, 44 different viewpoints, including an Annual Report which summarized all of the monthly PQ's sizing-up the entire radio marketplace (with a sample size of over 15,000 completed interviews each year).  Fortunately, two decades later, he is now able to share those results.

Though the numbers and market situations are dated the principal remains useful in helping you gain some perspective on great ways to examine the audience at large and in-target.

At the time, KNIX dominated three non-music positions - not just in the minds of the country audience, but with all radio listeners!

In fact, in this major market with many very aggressive broadcasters, KNIX did what it took to give away huge prizes, cash and contests so that no other station came close.  Their lead with "best DJ's" and "most involved" wasn't as incredible as their ownership of best contesting, but even in those two images they were head and shoulders above not just their direct competition, but all other radio stations with the entire listening audience.

Ponder this as you plan to 2014:  what might you do to dominate key usage-drivers?

If you'd like a free eight page report documenting Todd Wallace's Radio lndex "Winning Positions 2014" Attribution Research, Email-him and mention A&O&B.

Popularity

I don't know whether to blame this blog post on The New York Times or Taylor Swift.  Both are somewhat culpable.

They had to know that we'd all find their "Popular List" irresistible:

• 'I Gotta Feeling'
• Snickers
• 'Duck Dynasty'
• Behind the Best-Seller List
• Most-Stolen Author
• 'Finding Nemo'
• Top-Rated Shakespeare
• Most Pirated Movie
• Defending ‘Fifty Shades’
• Ten F-Train Reads
• Shockingly Popular Podcast
• Taylor Swift
• 'The Walking Dead'
• Most Visited Met Show Ever
• Top Pet Names in the USA
• Top Baby Names in NYC

And, I did.  Until I reached the ultimate point of the article:  "By one measure, no one watches “Girls.” By another, it’s fantastically popular. We already understand why this is: it’s a tenet of faith that we no longer experience culture as one hulking, homogeneous mass."

It suddenly started to sound a lot like one of the country programmers quoted by Country Aircheck as PPM ratings come out.  They want us to know that they are #1 in 20-23 year old boys who live on the south side of town and seem not to recognize that we can see their station's 6+ and 18-49 numbers, where the were beaten.

This game of demographics, of course, is not new to any of us in radio, who print new rankers every book with a different target where we hit it out of the park this time.

And, if we can't find a demo to brag about, we'll find you a psychographic or a flattering qualitative stat which proves how popular we are .. with somebody.

As Times writer Adam Sternbergh notes:  "Now, the concept of cultural popularity has been flayed, hung by its heels and drained of all meaning."

Let's stop bragging about meaningless rankers and begin to focus on the measure that really matters: 

• What proof do you have that your listeners are deeply engaged by your content and promotions?
• What can you show me that validates your advertisers get results exceeding their expectations?

How popular are you with the people who have money to spend on radio advertising?

Hey, Bill, Take Me Off Your List

Look what came in my mail yesterday:

As much as I appreciate the dollar, I am not going to keep it. 

I'll tell your folks when they call to find out how many people live in my household and our ages about my media affiliation, of course.  But, that isn't why I want you to remove me from your list.  After all, getting the PPM equipment would actually be a lot of fun for me and the other folks who live in my home.

Here's the real disqualifier:  I am going to be 70 years old next July.  There's actually no one living at my address who is under 60.

Please, Arbitron and Nielsen, stop wasting fielding dollars on placing your diaries and meters with folks like me and my family.

Sure, we love participating.  We're easy to reach.  We have landline phones.

Stop spending any money to pick such low-hanging fruit.  Work, instead, on getting better sample proportionality month after month with the decision demos that drive radio and TV revenues.

Please take people like me off your radar and focus all of your bucks on improving the sample size in the narrow demos media buyers care about:  18-34, 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54, both men and women and all ethnicities within 10% or less of their proportion to the total population.

"Presumptions Are Holding Us Back"

Catherine Kelly, VP/Western Region for BBM Canada made that statement recently during a day-long session with the Lower Mainland media sales and buying community which was laden with thought-provoking trends and stats.

"One of the largest values with PPM data, yet largely unexplored, is the ability to really get to know your audience and how people use your media. In Radio, we’re still dealing with dayparts that were defined by a methodology designed to measure it…rather than using our new methodology to help us design better stations, campaigns and advertising.

"It is unrealistic to look at old behaviour models and expect that they will continue to apply. 18-24 is the one demo that BBM receives the most questions and concerns about – whether the market or station is measured by diary or PPM. Every research company has issues with A18-24.

"PPM has these:

• Docking – I’m out late and I don’t dock til’ tomorrow
• Females – I couldn’t find a way to wear it with my dress
• CONTACT!!!! – reaching these people is IMPOSSIBLE
• And of course…..“Uhm…I (lost it, dropped it in the toilet/pool/shower/lake, had it but can’t find it, forgot it, left it in my friends car…..)”

"This is Reality…

"The 18-24 year olds THEMSELVES drive variability in audience numbers. They go in and out of the sample quicker and more often than older more ‘stable’ panelists.

"During these years, an 18-24 can experience one or more of these, perhaps several times, all within a year:

• Leave to go to school
• Then come back to parents house for summer
• Leave again
• Get a job, quit a job
• Buy a car, write off a car, etc.

"Nevermind what they can do over the course of 7 years..

"It is often assumed that radio listening and television viewing is a daily habit with slight variability over time. However, when you look at minute, hourly, daily, weekly and monthly data for 18-24 year olds, its clear that variability is the norm for this age group.

"Other factors that contribute: Co-Listening/Co-Viewing. Don’t forget that PPM captures ‘exposure’ and that means there are instances of co-listening or viewing, that are going to occur.

"This is particularly true during ‘holiday’ periods where the likelihood of an A18-24 being in a co-viewing/listening environment increases.

"Market events affect 18-24 year olds and drive variability in audience numbers. (psst..this is true of all demos!)

"Consider the following, especially when examining this group:

• What time of year is it?
• Did this happen last year?
• What could be happening in their lives?
• Market?
• Other media?"


Some folks will say that it must be "be nice to a ratings company day" at Breakfast Blog as I recap this, since I more tend more often to tweek our associates in the media research business given my innate and deeply ingrained sympathies with our programmers, talent and sellers.

However, anyone who shares an abode with an 18-24, a teen or a 25-34 knows that what she's telling us - like it or not - has considerable inconvenient truth in it.

It's time to learn new selling strategies.

Changes

The difference between last week and this one is huge.

Last week was Summer.

This week is Fall.

This change has nothing to do with the Autumnal Equinox. It is all about lifestyle (and also survey dates!).

Your listeners have been going through more adjustments over the last week than any other time of the year. Vacations are done. School starts. Some folks are carrying PPM meters through it all and others are getting ARB and BBM diaries to measure their use of radio through it all.

And a lot of ʻfirstsʼ for many of your listeners. Those crucial surveys to us are the least of their concerns right now.

For some it is the beginning of all day kindergarten for their kids. First day of grade one, first day of high school, first day of university. It is a stressful time. It also brings a sense of relief. It also creates lifelong memories.

Relating to your listeners experiences will help make you memorable.

Relatable, memorable radio makes your listeners happy. PPM likes it, too.

What you are doing now is being measured for the Fall Book.

(adapted from JRfm/The Peak PD Gord Eno's weekly 'jock memo.')

Ten Things To Do Now To Tune Up For Ratings

1. Get out and get involved in the community. Loyal listening audiences are built on a personal bond.
2. Come up with TEN things you could do to own your time slot.
3. Over-prepare so be sure that each break relates powerfully in unique and creative ways.
4. Rehearse everything you do for maximum impact.
5. Compress content. Rewrite in advance for brevity and word power.
6. Entertain. Provide an emotional experience between every song.
7. Listen to listeners and use their names and voices on the air, tightly-edited as often as possible.
8. Get one to one. Share your personal point of view and avoid crutches andclichés by being specific and evoking theatre of mind.
9. Provide instant gratification and be sure you present the music in line with our station image.
10. Constantly attack yourself. What would you do if you were your own competition.

The Truest Words I Heard All Day Today

The ratings go up

1. It's the GM, CEO, CFO
2. It's the PD, MD, or new voice guy.
3. It's the Jox.
4. It's the secret sound contest we ran for a week.
5. It's the remote on Saturday done from a car dealer by the weekend person
where we gave away 3 T-shirts and 6 month old CD's from the prize closet.
6. We got lucky with the sample this month.
7. It's our new logo.

The ratings go down;

- It's the consultant
- It's corporate.
- It's the sales department.
- The music is weak.
- The news was bad.
- The weather was hot, cold, wet, or dry.
- The morning newsperson was on vacation.
- We got screwed with the sample this month.
- It's our new logo.

- Spoken by longtime exec and media guru Bill Figenshu as we celebrated a great trend for GM Patty Hixson, PD Mac Daniels and their entire Peak Broadcasting KSKS/Fresno team today.

Send This Message To Your Team Now

"Today would be a good day to listen to competitors, listen to their music (pull Media Monitors, BDS or Mediabase for last week), listen to their imaging, contesting, commercials and how their clocks are set up.

"Take a look at their websites and take a listen to their streaming product as well.

"Are you winning in all aspects?

"The Spring ARB starts in 14 days."

-- An email sent by one of the sharpest market managers I work with to his proramming and marketing people yesterday.

Strong Feelings = Strong Ratings

Toronto researcher Jeff Vidler recently showed me a new online approach to real time programming analysis which inventories down to the second the feelings of the viewer or listener as they watch video or listen to audio.

In a very short clip of a sports talk show the audience was curious, engaged, interested, excited, then confused, bored, disturbed and then tuned off.

The more deeply-felt positive emotions, ranging from amused to happy, the higher the level of usage.

Negative ones, like ranges of annoyed or apathetic, don’t take very long to cost attention span at the very least and lose a listener at the most.

Sales and management’s job is to push to use every minute to help them make money.

Talented programmers and personalities are able to find a way to do that by keeping the audience’s feelings positively engaged and their interest level high, relating all their content informatively and engagingly.

Then, there’s the majority of us, the majority of the time.

We've been reading the same lines on the same cards for too many years.

As you air check yourself, listen for great storytelling - immediate, local and personal - and count the positive emotions you feel.

Weak/no feelings = weak/no ratings.

Have You Sent The Holiday Cards To Your Database Yet?

A RELATIONSHIP MARKETING PLAN

Here is a step-by-step method of maintaining contact with your core using data base marketing, while constantly building new cume for the radio station and locating P-2 and P-3 listeners and converting them to P-1 (loyal) listeners. If you're not wrapping yours for 2010 up right now, resolve to do it in 2011.

1. Buy a metro survey area (from the same supplier of lists ARB/BBM uses) list of households with listed telephones in your target demo.

2, Telemarket to at least 10% of that data base during each survey. Call in the evening. Invite folks to try the station tomorrow morning. Make an appointment to call them again tomorrow night to ask their opinions. Follow up the second contact with a thank you letter from a member of station management. Add all who agree to sample to your station "frequent listener" data base.

3. Mail a letter to your entire data base from the station manager or program director at least once per year that includes a response card. See if they are still listening. If they ARE, keep them in the data base. They are are NOT, target them for telemarketing or a direct marketing campaign related to the reasons they no longer listen. Capture an email address, of course, and hook them into your social networking too, but don't stop using snail mail for these tactics until ARB and BBM do.

4. Send a station newsletter to the data base at least once per survey period. Have it arrive during week 1 of each survey period. Keep the editorial content fun, use lots of pictures of air and music personalities, but don't forget to sell the key benefits of listening to your station too! Sure, by email is cheaper, but aren't you trying to impact the ratings survey?

5. If you are in a Fall ratings market, you should have sent your Christmas cards (that contain a yearly calendar with a picture that will be saved and displayed throughout the coming year) signed by your personalities to the data base in weeks 8 or 9 of the survey.

6. Gather birth date information from all data base names. Send a birthday card (with a coupon for a cake, etc) hand signed by all air personalities to 1/12 of the data base each month.

7. If you are in a Winter survey market, send a Valentines Day card (with a coupon for flowers or candy) to all women in the data base during week 4.

8. Gather "at work" listening information and the names of friends who listen. Do mailings with silent contesting to listeners rewarding them for listening at work. Mention friends names on the air and pay off for data base people who "tell a friend" about the station.

9 Work to build a data base - emails, social networks and also snail mail too - that equals at least 20% of your projected cume goal. Recognize that at least one-fifth of the names and addresses will become outdated each year. Keep your data base up to date by constantly using it to generate "value added" promotion ideas that can be done off the air (consuming no units, yet building promotional revenue).

10. Send "thank you gifts" to your data base: refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers, key chains, etc.

These aren't tactics. Together, done in a timed, disciplined basis, it's a strategy that will pay off in better ratings in 2011. Growth isn't cheap. But, a plan like this isn't that expensive either, especially given the potential pay off.

PS: By-The-Way...

Have you ever wondered how many people in your market are represented by one single diary keeper or meter?

To find the "PPDV" (person per diary value), divide the in-tab sample from any geographic, age, or sex in to the total population of that cell. Do the same with "PPMV," but be prepared to have your hair stand on end.

The result is the number of people each diary represents within that cell.

You'll see WHY one diary keeper is so important to your station and one metered family who happens to listen more than two or three times per day to you is even MORE so.

Ratings: UP/DOWN. Do You Know WHY?

Because there are numerous factors that cause ratings to rise and fall, too many to list in this post, it's often difficult to put a finger on exactly what causes fluctuations in your ratings.

Without the aide of analytical tools discovering why your numbers fluctuated can be frustrating.

This is not meant to be a substitute for those efforts, but rather a quick check list of numbers that sometimes get ignored when looking at the "bigger" picture.

Look for these numbers to help uncover the question of "Why?".

Audience Composition/Sample Composition: For most markets ratings break down the demos into multiple demographics: Teens, 12+, and 18+, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, and 55-64 for both men and women.

Here, you'll find what percentage of your audience falls within each cell.

How Does This Help You?

You certainly have an idea of whom you where targeting during the book. These numbers show how accurate you where in reaching that demo. If your primary target was Women 25-34 and your audience is comprised of only 5% from that demo, you immediately know you have a problem. Now, look at the sample composition to see if the problem was your station's or was due to a poorly distributed sample either demographically or geographically (or both).

You can also see what station did a better job in that demo. Was it reach or TSL? Compare both the Audience Composition in Cume and AQH to help you draw a conclusion.

Daypart Trends: By looking at the Cume Rating/Persons and the AQH Share/Persons trends, you can quickly see where you were most affected.

Be sure to keep a record of what, if any, changes occurred in any daypart during a book that could have affected your outcome (i.e. If you had a new afternoon show this book and AQH went down).

Look at how well each daypart converted the available Cume to AQH. Your marketing may be bringing them in, but is your PM Drive show keeping them?

You may also narrow down the reason for a trend to a show element by looking at the Hour-By-Hour shares. Maybe your "All Request Lunch Hour" is (or isn't) the reason for your mid-day spike. Is your morning show losing or gaining audience from 6:00am - 8:00am? You'll find these answers here. PPM data really shines here, due to its granularity and also demonstrates convincingly that much of what people write down is not what they really do.

Metro Cume Duplication Percent: With which stations do you share the most/least of your audience? Is their audience reciprocating?

This is a great way to monitor your marketing tactics. What can you do to get the attention of your competitor's listeners?

Population Estimates and In-Tab Diaries by County: Make sure you've concentrated your efforts on the hot spots. This is especially important now, since samples will still be based on changes in population estimates that started by in 2000. It will be 18 months before actual 2010 changes start to impact the estimates.

If doing a diary review, be sure to look at your return rate from these counties and compare it to your competitor's.

Look at the zip codes and do the same comparison. Be sure you know where those active radio listeners live. Even better, study the zip codes which contribute more than average time spent listening to you.

Cume Recycling: find out what percentage of your total cume persons listen to any particular daypart. Simply divide the 12+ cume for each daypart by the total metro cume.

How well are you recycling your listeners through other dayparts? Do this for your competitors' stations as well and find the dayparts you can improve upon. You can also break this down by specific demo, as well as AQH persons.

Listening Locations: This is another indicator that is sometimes given little attention. It shows what percentage of your audience listens "At Home", "In car", and "Other". You'll get a feel for your listeners' morning, in-office, and drive time listening habits.

While looking at the big picture and searching for the generic answer in your latest book, don't take for granted these often overlooked calculations.

They can help point out some of the finer, more intricate reasons WHY your station performed the way it did.

Correct the problems you uncover, and next book you and you'll be asking, "why did we do so well this book?" Even better, you'll KNOW.

We All Know About Hot Zips

.. but, these tight-budget days, the smartest among us are finding ways to USE what they know, by putting it into action.

For the last twenty years (at least), everyone has been building, maintaining, growing and mailing/phoning an active listener (hopefully, not limited only to contest winners, but also including the kind of folks who enjoy voicing their opinions on the radio they hear) data base.

OK. What now?

If you are planning to do direct mail in the next survey, ask your list supplier or printer to do a postal cell analysis of that database of yours and start mailing to lists NOT JUST FROM HOT ZIPS BUT FROM YOUR HOT POSTAL CELLS (zip + 4) within those hot zips as demonstrated by listening patterns in your listener database.

Arbitron has been block coding their data since fall of 1994, but because of the sample size of Arbitron in most hot zips, using ARB diaries to try to locate the hottest postal cells within your hot zip areas takes four or more rating periods in diary markets and, perhaps, several years in PPM metros with their smaller sample sizes.

Your data base is probably five, ten, fifteen or more times larger than the entire ARB sample right now, making it a much more accurate source of this statistical information than tracking hot zips from one diary review.

In Canada, due to stricter privacy laws, there is only one way I know to gather this info: your own database of listeners who have given you permission to engage in a relationship with them.

Even better, these are ALL your listeners. So, since there is no waste, there is a very high likelihood that the folks who live in the same postal cells as the majority of the names and addresses in your data base are excellent prospects for conversion marketing.

Since they probably know that most of their neighbors are already listening to your station and since they share many of the same lifestyle patterns, they'll probably be quite responsive when you give them a solid reason to do so as well by mail or by phone.

A single zip code may contain 40,000 or more addresses. But, after studying the hottest postal cells (zip + 4) represented in your database, you may find that there are specific areas within such a zip code where a mailing of fewer than 10,000 homes could have the same (or better) impact as a full market mailer.

Postal cell information that you can develop now from your own in-house database will most likely still be more useful and accurate! So, what are you waiting for?

In one situation we know about this past Fall where the technique of carefully cloning a list of prospects for a direct mail campaign was born out of the hottest postal cells in the station's active listener data base, average quarter hours have soared.

This was accomplished with a mailing of only 100,000 homes located in key postal cells of the station within this metro area of nearly 4,000,000 people. More amazingly, the response rate of this direct mail piece (aside from affecting the station's ratings very positively) was 22%!

After mailing just 100,000 households, this station added 22,000 names to its database in only eight weeks.

Of course, now that they have increased the size of that original database, the next "postal cell analysis" they perform on their database for their next direct mail or telemarketing blitz will be even more accurate in pinpointing and targeting ONLY the areas where they have the very best prospects for building cume and TSL.

Facebook is nice. Email is good. Tweets are OK. But, until radio ratings companies stop placing their samples in homes, there’s no better use of your time than building, maintaining, studying and refining your strategies to find the geographic hot pockets where your heaviest users reside and work.

If you’ve been marketing radio for very long, you know this.

"Knowing" is not the same thing as DOING, is it?

ARB Fly-In 2009 Quotes

"We need to tell a better story to a broader range of advertiser.” -Alton Adam, Executive VP/Chief Marketing Officer/Arbitron

“People want more from the devices they carry and audience measurement should be designed for any media, anywhere, any time.” -Taymoor Arshi, ARB Senior Vice President, Engineering and Chief Technology Officer

PPM shows that the average listener comes to radio 31 occasions of listening per week, half of them to their P-1 station. These are “16 moments of truth” for stations and personalities. Are you driving more than just ‘average’ daily regularity from your heavy users by deeply understanding who your listeners are, where they are, what they care about, what else they do?” -Tripp Eldredge, DMRInteractive

“Spot loads matter in PPM ratings. Every time the station breaks, people bolt. The more times you break, the more they bolt. ARB is ultimately hoping that owners realize they need to cut commercial their loads to get rating point levels up, which will drive revenue growth.” -John Snyder, Vice President, Portable People Meter Sales/ARB