Mark Ramsey asks:
If you ran a radio station, what things might you do to make it stand out?
My first decision as a radio station exec would be to choose my station’s reason for being. As I see it, a station has two options to choose from – Primary Promotion or Format First. Choosing to place a priority on promotion means you decide to supremely focus on helping advertisers achieve their business objective. Focusing on the format first is about creating a radio station that is the market’s music expert or news/talk expert.
Primary Promotion
To succeed in being a promotions-driven radio station, I believe the advertiser’s objective must become the station’s objective. For example, if a car dealership’s objective is to sell 40 new cars during a three-week promotional flight, then the station’s objective is to do everything within its promotional power to help the dealership meet or exceed their 40 car goal.
The measurement of success for my promotionally-minded station would be less about ratings and more about results for the advertisers. Ultimately, I believe advertisers want results more than ratings. Helping advertisers consistently achieve their business objectives will not only help my station retain their promotional spend, it will also serve as a firewall to protect my station for any slack in ratings it may experience.
As a promotions-driven station, I would challenge my Promotions Department with flawlessly executing fun, creative, and effective on-air and off-air promotions. For example, when giving away concert tickets, I would ask listeners not to be the 9th caller to station. Instead, I would drive traffic to a local advertiser’s business and have the lucky listener(s) pick up their free tickets there … at the retailer. For call-in remotes, I’ll insist on crystal clear sound (not the typical static-heavy cell phone gritty sound that other stations find acceptable) and my station would always send a recognizable on-air personality (never an intern).
For local and regional advertisers who lack the financial resources to create great radio creative, we would design dynamic on-air station-driven promotional campaigns that will generate results far better than a cheaply produced radio spot.
In summary, my Promotions Department would develop and implement ideas geared towards helping the advertiser achieve their objective and not geared towards helping the station achieve its self-serving objectives.
Format First
All programming and promotional efforts by my Format First station would strive to cultivate a fanatical listening audience that looks to the station to serve as their “lifestyle and cultural editor.” Listeners would rely upon the station’s expertise, be it music or news/talk, to make them more knowledgeable and more hip to the latest and most noteworthy lifestyle, cultural, and societal happenings going on.
My station would treat its listeners as being curious and discerning and not boring and indifferent. These listeners are influentials and thought-leaders that can make or break new product launches from advertisers. Advertisers seeking to reach an influential audience of buzz-builders will value placing their ad spend on my format first station because of the quality of audience they will reach.
To cultivate a fanatical listening audience, I would empower my station’s audience from being passive listeners to being active participants. My station would engage listeners in a variety of off-air ways from online/offline newsletters to an interactive website/blogsite to special invitation only events. All the content for these interactive communication ideas would be culled from the unique lifestyle and cultural perspective of the station’s format, be it music-focused or news/talk-focused.
My Format First station would be on the leading edge of what influential listeners (i.e. the early majority) are thinking, doing, and buying. Advertisers would value the opportunity, and may even pay a premium, to reach the influential listeners my station would attract.
John, I think you are right on. I know of stations that do the promotion thing well but they forget to provide excellent content that attracts an audience to hear that promotion.
Your description of a Format first station sounds a lot like WGN radio in Chicago.
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