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FEEL PRINT MEDIA BUCKS IN YOUR RADIO HANDS
By: WALTER SABO
PUBLISHED IN RADIO AND RECORDS JUNE 27, 2002 pg 11.
Everything you don't want in an audience, newspapers attract: Very old demos. Diminishing audience size. Short time spent using. Entire sections (like dayparts) that have little readership. The same problems plague TV newscasts and many magazines.
Despite these liabilities, the single daily newspaper in every city in America out-grosses all of the radio stations in that city. Yes, true in Los Angeles. Circulation? No, that's not the reason. WINS in New York City has a weekly cume circulation of 2.4 million---that's more than any single newspaper in the entire country.
Sabo Media works with many publications including the most read Magazine in the English speaking world, PARADE and the biggest newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. Let me tell you a secret. The reason print makes more than radio is that advertisers can hold the ad in their hands. It's tangible. Stupid, right? Obvious, right? For years radio has attempted to overcome the "tangible" issue the wrong way. We offer bromides like, "Radio may be intangible but the results are tangible."
Those phrases aren't working, stop goofin' around and let's make radio tangible to an advertiser. It's so simple, so elementary to make radio advertising tangible, it seems hard to imagine that these methods bring positive results. But they will. Guaranteed.
Try these five tactics for six months. If they don't cut your churn rate and bring dollars from print, Sabo media will pay for your next vacation.
AIRCHECKS MATTER.
1. Put their radio ad in their hands. Make a cassette aircheck of every spot.
Spray the cassette with gold paint. Put it in a form fitting cassette holder folder. Include a copy of their ad copy and a neatly typed (not a computer print out) of their performance report. Include a one sheet that explains, in simple terms, exactly how many people heard the spot. All custom, no handouts. Now, the advertiser has something to show and play for their colleagues and investors.
MOM WAS RIGHT.
2. Write thank you letters. New orders should receive a personal "thank you" letter from you and one from every single air personality whose show features the spot. The advertiser is not just buying your audience, they are buying your music and stars.
YOU'RE IN SHOWBIZ, MAKE A SHOW.
3. How radio is "made" is mysterious. It's showbusiness, use the power of showbusiness. Every single advertiser with children of a certain age have enjoyed a tour of the newspaper printing plant and newsroom. Invite advertisers and their children to visit the radio station. Make sure that the kids visit the production room and leave with a CD featuring their voices put through weird processing effects. An advertiser's kid in your production room gives you an advertiser forever.
Become a tangible part of the buyer's life. Remember the birthdays, anniversaries, and pet preferences. So corny it hurts, right? It works.
WRAP IT NICE.
4. Throw away all of your handouts. They look terrible compared to those created by newspapers and magazines. Horrible. If you want $100,000 orders, you have to look like a company that is used to
receiving million dollar orders. Start again. The biggest waste of money is on cheesy handouts with poor graphics and dated information. Invest in a top graphic artist and the finest print job available. If your sales kit is the first thing an advertiser holds in his hand from your station, it should feel good to the touch, it must represent quality. Otherwise, don't bother handing out anything.
What should the handout say? It should lead with the bigger number. Print sells -readership- first, circulation second. Readership is a wacky calculation of how many people theoretically read one newspaper or magazine. The readership number is always 3 or 4 times the circulation number. Advertisers accept and pay for this imaginary, much bigger, readership number.
Cable sells "homes passed." That's not how many homes actually get cable, it's how many homes the cable goes by! Really. And, although they exist, you cannot obtain local cable ratings. No one will give them out. They are too small.
Only radio presents the smallest number: Average Quarter Hour. The number to lead with is cume. Cume puts your station on par with newspaper circulation figures.
GET NEW FURNITURE.
5. Step into the lobby of most newspapers and you'll feel that you are part of something very big and very important. (Haven't visited the newspaper's lobby? Go visit your competition at lunch today.) Step into the lobby of most radio stations and you'll feel as though you're waiting for your car at an auto body shop in Rahway New Jersey. Most radio station lobbies are tiny, filthy, harbor tattered furniture, bare rugs, bulletproof buzzer doors and gum smacking receptionists.
Imagine an advertiser with $500,000 to spend in local media. The advertiser visits the newspaper, then she visits your station. Where is the money going to go? Money goes to money. Does your lobby look like money or a pawn shop?
These are simple ways to give radio advertising a tangible dimension. I'm sorry it's not more complicated. Sure, radio gets tangible results. First we have to land the tangible dollars.
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