Promoting With Sales - Good? or Bad?

We all know the scenario here. Programming doesn't have any big money for a book promotion and puts together an idea to give away a big prize. For this example let's say it's a motorcycle. So the sales team goes out and tries to cut a deal for a bike. Often we see the dealer, who was going to spend 15K over the Spring months on the station, decides 'let's just give them a bike and I've got tons of exposure' (probably more than 15K) and since the dealer only paid 10K for the bike he's got a real deal. So he cancels the 15K order and shines up the bike for the promotion.

Meanwhile the station loses the 15K he would have spent in spots and probably the sales team loses a pile of the commission on the deal. From the sales and revenue picture this doesn't look like a good deal at all and the Sales Manager, who wants to help the station, has to draw the line when he misses the budget and watches his sales people working on this deal instead of spending time on 'real revenue' potentials.

There is a way to make this a deal for the motorcycle shop, the sales team, the revenue line and the programming side, but you have to look at all sides and build a promotion that has bigger potential and can involve more than just the motorcycle shop. Every market and sales scenario will be different here, but look at this example of a promotion outline and the revenue potential:

1. Motorcycle - Walk in 4K from the promotion budget and INVEST it in the prize. Put together a package for 12K with the bike dealer and you will pay him 4K for the bike as well as do the promotion with at least 10K of advertising exposure for him from sweepers, remotes, liners etc. Now sales gets 12K in revenue, still 3K less than they hoped for but at least they get 80% of the deal and there's commission for the team.

2. Remote Package - Put together a remote package with a big send off for the bike at a big bar and then sell packages with lots of promos, a schedule and a remote. You can price it over the usual remote since you have lots of extra excitement in the promotion. If you have a launch promotion for 2K and 8 smaller remotes at bars, retail stores, etc priced at 1.5K now you have 14K in revenue over the month.

Sales gains by having extra value added incentives to pass on without giving away inventory from the spot logs. Sales also gains by having a potential of 14K more in revenue for the month. The Sales manager is now looking at the potential of taking that 15K order from the bike shop and turning it into 24K of revenue even after we pay 4k for the bike in cash. Programming can have an exciting promotion that's all over the community and still have that book promotion.

It takes more planning and advance thought and it's not as simple as filling out the order, but both sides (sales and programming) end up with revenue potential and on-air excitement that hopefully will drive some ratings boost.

I know that every deal may not work like the example in your market, but I think you see the concept. Also many of you already do this, but you've learned that advance planning, organization, and being careful with the details. I've also seen examples that reflect more of the beginning of this story - where everyone has just tossed in the towel.

It works best when the programming team and the sales team commit to working together and laying out a solid plan WELL IN ADVANCE. Now is the time to start thinking for Spring 08. You probably know the budgets at the station level and if you lay the foundation before the holidays you have just enough time to pull it off by April.

Every Market Is Unique!!!

As consultants we often get tagged as a big part of the cause in the sameness of radio programming, along with the consolidated larger radio groups. Many see us as the pioneers with cookie cutter formats that ended up sounding the same in many markets. The same tricks, imaging, promotions, and music lists standardized.

While I can see the reason for the accusation with some I'm not a believer in the sameness of markets. Every market IS unique. I've worked in over 100 markets as a programmer, VP of Programming or consultant and there are obvious and clear differences in each one of them. Some of the differences come from the economic base of the market, the levels of education, housing situation, terrain, climate, heritage of the population, and their growth situation. Others come from the competition and the heritage of the station we are working with. And some just come from the style of the people in the area.

Some cities are friendlier, others more guarded. Some are more active and hustling, others more quiet and low key. Some are growing quickly, while others are watching their population and growth fade.

All of these are factors in helping a station reach it's full potential. If you don't take a careful and long look at all the factors in the 'market environment' you are going to leave audience, images, and dollars on the table that if wasted will limit your growth. It's also important to look at the competition and see who has impacted the audience and for what reason. For the real successful stations in always goes beyond 'the music position or mix.'

It does take an extra effort going beyond looking at perceptual research and ratings history. You have to 'get a feel' for the market and look at as much data as you can. Pouring over the Prizim data which defines the population into 15 social groups based on income, living conditions, occupation, age, and overall lifestyle. We used to get Prizim data in the front of the 'printed' Arbitron reports. But, it's not there in the E-Books and we also don't see it in Maximizer. I wonder why Arbitron took this page out? Perhaps no one was reading it, but it's packed with useful data on the real 'core' of the market and gives you a measurable system to look for key elements that make each market unique.

If you don't look at the unique moments in each market you are leaving A LOT ON THE TABLE. The key is getting as much data and also a real 'feel' for what makes a market unique.

One of the things I started to do as a PD was to take the first 90 days I was in a market and keep a log of the unique and different things I saw. I still do this in my notes on the first 2 market visits. The first impressions are always very important as you're eyes and ears are wide open to see the unique and different ingredients which are often the most valuable to key on. After you've been there a year as the PD I bet you don't see as many differences and unique moments as you did in the first 3-6 months.

If we want to really 'be local' and really connect with a community it doesn't happen because 'the community is just like someplace else.' It happens because 'this market is unique.' Cue on those moments in your strategy and tactics and you will make a much bigger impression with the audience.

Role Development

The 'key ingredient' for any jock/personality is to develop a 'role' with the audience. To visualize it take a look at sit coms where we have actors usually playing characters. Sinefeld was the 'observer with a unique angle' and used that platform to build a character that took funny views of the things in everyday life. Ray Romano built his show around a husband/wife/family relationship where he was mostly the 'unfortunate' one that couldn't quite get it while being lovable. Charlie Sheen plays the hip playboy in Two and Half Men living with an opposite nerdy brother and a little kid who gets more of his playboy lifestyle than we expect.

All of these people are actors and do a great job of playing their roles and developing their characters. How many of your air staff members approach their daily shows with an eye/ear on role development and realize that they are creating a character? I bet most of them would tell you they are seeking to 'be themselves' on the air.

So who wants to listen to a guy who lives in a sound proof room? We have to create and develop roles that the audience can understand in the time they have to listen. When Ray Romano creates his character he only has 20 minutes to develop the story and build his character. So we don't get a ton of insight - mostly that he's into having sex with his wife but she's a bit cool on it, his parents live across the street and are a pain in a rear, and his brother is mostly a loser. It's pretty simple stuff to build a show on and with only 20 minutes that's about all we can expect.

In Morning shows you have a whole different game to play with multiple personalities and a lot more time to develop them as we typically talk more. But, for years we've focused a lot on that daypart - it's time to work on the rest of the day and I bet most stations haven't spent the time and effort to coach and develop roles the rest of the day.

The lesson here is keep it pretty simple and basic and make sure to develop it well enough to cut through. Here's some roles that we often hear somewhat developed in our non-morning show air staffs that you might consider:

In Touch Jock: They know what's going on in the world on a general platform. They follow TV, Movies, Sports, Music, Personality, and the Community and work in the headlines almost every day.

Music Expert: Focused on the music and they know it inside and out. They offer some critiques, inside info on tours and new releases. Great on the concert scene also.

Everyday Joes: Almost as if you plucked someone out of the audience and put them on the air. They follow everything the audience does and relate to it in a way that sounds natural. This is usually not the deep voiced or formal sounding jock.

Wild Ones: It seems like they party all the time and are everywhere there's something happening in the market. Every event they hit is an adventure with drama, zany moments, and edgy actions.

Cool Ones: Rather laid back with a 'just the facts' attitude. This one is pretty hard to pull off and make an impression with. You can do it on screen with looks a lot easier than on the radio where we can't use those tools.

Rule Book: We hear this character a lot, but it usually doesn't make any impression on the audience. They execute the backsell, liner, billboard deal well with a smooth delivery and everything is well positioned, but it's usually about as entertaining as listening to auto phone answer systems.

The Mayor: Sooo plugged into the community. If there's 3 people at an event they are one of them. They have touched so many people personally they get known. How many times have you seen a jock who doesn't sound that great on the air, but seems to have huge numbers and a big following. Chances are they are The Mayor - they ran for the office and never quit once they got the job.

There are a lot more roles out there. If you're on the air or if you're coaching the air staff make sure to take some time and look closely at Role Development in every coaching session. If you want to build real personalities instead of just some taking heads this is THE KEY to doing it.

Personalities and Tune Out

In Mark Ramsey's excellent NAB presentation on Seducing PPM one of his conclusions focuses on tune out around the 'open mic' vs tune out during music. Of course the data is not favorable for the jocks. For most stations it's at least twice as likely that the audience will tune out.

While some of this may be jocks that have nothing to say, are un-prepared, or really don't know anything about the audience and can't relate to them. We all know there are personalities that have huge followings and DO connect with the audience. But, there could also be another factor at work here - OUR FORMATICS.

When do you hear from the jocks? In most clocks you hear from them 4-5 times an hour. 2-3 of those exposures are just BEFORE THE SPOTS. So what has your personality become? A SET UP MAN/WOMAN FOR THE SPOTS. The jocks clue in the audience that - COMMERCIALS IN 20 SECONDS. So what do they do? Start hunting for more entertainment and avoid the spots.

If we somehow re-worked the clocks so the personalities were doing more between the songs and perhaps we started going from a sweeper into spots perhaps our personality assets wouldn't end up in the audience trash bag as much.

Mark's presentation is great reading and he also has a video on it on his web site check it out here.

New Rock Music for 25-54s

While Classic Rock is no doubt a great format and we've seen a whole bunch of winners playing the 'music that's stood the test of time' it's a tough format to keep alive in the long run. The problem is New Music. Yes there are so many great songs that seem to never completely burn out in the library, but it's still a challenge to make Freebird sound exciting enough to hang out for a spot break to hear it for the millionth time.

There are new songs out there that could be played. Just look at the new Springsteen E Street Band reunion. It debut at #1 in sales and hung in there for 2 weeks. The song is a very well done Springsteen tune that in the 80s would have been zipping up the charts. There's a ton more of the vintage artists that have tried to keep putting out new music and there's also a bunch of artists that really are compatible with rock. Why couldn't we play Coldplay if we play U2 or perhaps even taken on John Mayer or Dave Matthews if we played the Eagles? We play old Ozzy all over the place, but little happened with the new Ozzy outside of all the active rock airplay which is really not directed fully at the boomer 40 plus audience that Classic Rock targets.

This same audience is paying thousands to see the classic artists perform in concerts and they are really the last ones buying CDs today. Part of the problem lies in the positioning of Classic Rock. Just like we saw in the name 'oldies,' which meant only songs from the 50s and 60s to the audience - Classic Rock means only songs from the 70s and 80s. It's been sold to the audience that we only deliver those decades and new music, even from these artists, is not in the package. So when we play it the audience rates it low on the scale. We could build a station that blends the classics and new music from compatible artists but it will take a whole new platform. Someone has to try.

A while back we revamped the Fox in Grand Rapids to include currents and still focus on a Classic Rock base. It took a whole revamp of the positioning and imaging, but in the end we were never able to make it fully work. The station gained a lot at first then fell behind as the marketing dried up just as we needed it and internal changes pushed the station off target. Had they stayed the course it was likely it could have been a breakthrough station. It's an approach that needs some research, fresh marketing, and you have to be very careful with finding truly compatible newer music.

If you look at other 25-54 formats like AC or Country they have NO PROBLEM playing current songs and getting compatible new artists in the mix. Why can't rock?

If you want to get some other views visit Lee Abrams' blog here. While Lee is seeing it from the XM perspective the reality is still there. BTW his views are a bit buried in his blog entry this week - you'll have to wander through Lee's airplane tales (always entertaining to those of us who fly and wish we could just take off in our own rig) and a few sales pitches for the XM channels, but it's always a worthwhile read.

Fall TV Shows - Change and Fantasy

Remember 5 years ago on TV when reality shows lead by Survivor and Idol were all the rage? The fad that started on MTV and TV from other countries was taking over. Every network was in search of reality shows while we saw comedies nearly disappear from the line up of the 5 broadcast networks.

As the new season debuts it looks like our programming friends in TV land are sensing a trend away from reality. There are only 3 new shows that qualify as reality out of 27 new shows set to debut this fall. You can see the full line up here.

One of the trends emerging is what I call supernatural drama. Heroes and perhaps Lost started the trend and now we have the Bionic Woman, Supernatural, and Journeyman that seem to be the opposite of reality. The plots, like Heroes, are built on people with super/extra powers - the opposite of a reality thread. There are even comedy shows in this vein like Chuck and Aliens in America.

One of rules when you track trends for popular entertainment from movies, TV or music is that once a fad or trend starts to become huge a balancing will follow with the next trend often coming from the opposite pole. Looks like the TV programmers with there test audiences, research and guts are betting on the decline of the reality era and into a fantasy land of drama and comedy.

If you look back at the early 80s we had a similar trend. From the sitcoms of the 70s like Happy Days or 3s Company to a shift lead by space movies like Star Wars and ET. We even ended up with cars that talked.

Remember the old sayings.

-Change is good
-When your through changing - you're through.
-Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.John F. Kennedy:
-Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

Keep that in mind as you listen to new music, craft your imaging, plan your promotions and coach your talent. What worked today or yesterday is likely to be inadequate in the future.

Building Your Air Talent Team

No doubt the last 10 years of content management in Radio has not helped develop much on the talent side of the ledger. As an industry we've learned to operate on a tight budget, multi-task with many PDs and talent team players handling multiple roles and many of the having very little to do with serving the audience.

We've also seen PDs crawl behind the computer screens dealing with the 'machine' that seems to run the programming. Listening in hotel rooms and on-line you can see it all the time - talent just rolling along on the air, talking to themselves (or about themselves), not paying attention to the audience and really not listening to their shows. I've even seen studios where there is no aircheck system - digital or even a boombox cassette.

As you think about coaching the talent in your halls here's a couple of tips I've found useful:

• Avoid the Critique - Looking back at all the mistakes or blown breaks and ranting while the talent squirms in the chair won't improve their game. It already went over the transmitter. Look ahead at show prep, their comfort level in the studio, their understanding of the audience and how confident they are behind the mic. If you can take a positive approach to finding ways to improve those areas you will end up with better shows. Just preaching - DON'T - only gets them uncomfortable, under confident and un-entertaining.


• Listen - Not just to their shows, but also to them. What are their struggles? You have to make things work in the studio and even though the engineering list with the bad pots, faulty phone system or software issues may seem like nit-picking it does make the job harder.


• Don't scare them - The more they dread the 'meeting' with you the less productive it will be. You can show your leadership and authority with the time sheets, showing up on time, and other 'hallway' areas. But when it comes to working on their show if they fear you your effectiveness in coaching will go down a ton. What you really want is their trust and respect - not their fear.
  

Lastly make sure you have a plan for each of the people you work with. For some it's role development, others it's getting comfortable on the air, some need to prep better, others may be challenged in understanding the target audience. Know what you need to work on before you open the tool box.

It takes time to work with the talent and the learning curve can be a tough one. It might even be an area where you want or need a coach to coach the coach.

The Fig Man Hits It On The Head

If you haven't read Bill Figenshu's comments after the NAB on the never ending question of the state of radio and where it's heading - click here.

Fig sums it up completely in just over a page. The goals are simple and the observations are keen.

Also congrats to Fig on taking on the leadership role in Peak Broadcasting. Glad he has a position to make some of the dreams from his vision into reality. WE NEED IT.

The key to our future lies in THE PRODUCT and we all see the need to get away from all the money concerns and the 20 year philosophy that sales and money solves all problems.

It sort of reminds me of the Diet Crazes. We all know that a balanced diet, patience and some exercise will do the trick, but we continue to jump on any new diet craze. Let's get back to the product and stick with it.