A new report from the RAB reveals the persistent lagging of Local revenue compared to National in the United States. Specifically, National sales is ahead 14% so far this year compared to Local’s 3% improvement over the disastrous previous year. Overall, at the end of the 3rd quarter radio is up 6% over last year. To pump up Local sales, the RAB plans a “Revenue Road Show” into markets 50-100 during the first quarter of 2011. Their strategy is to provide training and educational sessions in marketing, sales techniques, creative, research and business development.
The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that “Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule”. Could this be the case with the RAB? Aren’t the above mentioned activities the same things the RAB has already been doing for some time? And doesn’t Albert Einstein offer that Insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?
Of course, the RAB is not insane: in reality they are very helpful to many and there’s no equating RAB sessions with sanity. There’s no suggestion that a system that fails at solving a sales problem is the same as an insane person who misunderstands his or her own irrational behaviors. But the metaphor is useful if it directs your attention to this: to become more successful in attracting additional direct, local business – to get different results, the first step is to acknowledge the cold, hard reality that stations are going to have to try something new.
Here then are 4 new suggestions for developing more direct, local business – all based on the concept of getting clients better results from their radio campaigns. If you subscribe to an on-line research facility like MediaScore, you can do all the below for free.
1. Determine the Underlying Cause
An unsuccessful client usually has not been able to correctly indentify a problem they are having; otherwise they would have probably already solved it. So the information stations get from client interviews is based on the client’s perception of their problem not the reality. For instance, a restaurateur might believe his customers want cheap meals delivered fast. But independent research shows his customers actually wanted a good meal delivered quickly...and the cost of the meal was actually low in importance. So if the restaurant advertises a cheap meal delivered fast, they are not delivering a benefit that customers actually want.
Objective research telling stations the benefits sought by customers to a specific business and who (if anyone) already satisfies those needs can now be acquired at little to no additional cost through on-line companies like Media Score.
2. Evaluate the Creative Message
It is essential your client’s commercials communicate the right thing to be successful. To find out if they do, you have to ask your listeners a few questions. Again, this can be done inexpensively through on-line research.
Familiarity – are you familiar with this commercial? The more familiar a message is the more accurate the evaluation will be.
Likeability – do you like this commercial? It’s amazing how this influences what customers think of your product/service. Using a 1 to 9 scale, an average score over 7 is a hit commercial.
Message received – what is the commercial telling you? People might like a commercial yet don’t know who it’s for or what it’s offering. You should receive the correct message from at least 2/3 of your respondents.
Proclivity to purchase – would you buy this product or service based on this message? Yes, many companies go broke betting on products that people said they would buy - but don’t. It’s not whether there is a market for the product (your original strategic research would have told you that) rather it’s to see if the commercial is compelling enough to motivate customers into action.
3. Ensure Proper Frequency
The effective number of times a message needs to be heard is between 3 and 10 times. Any less than a frequency of 3 is wasted - as is any over 10. A frequency of over 15 starts to yield negative results (“if I hear that commercial one more time,”). The reason for a spread in effective frequency between 3 and 10 is that some client offers are much more attractive to a person’s needs at the time. The goal is to increase the effective frequency of a campaign and reduce the wasted and negative exposure. To do this you must analyze the frequency distribution of the planned campaign, not just accept average frequency.
A heavy campaign might reach 95% of your station’s target an average of 6.5 times – seemingly ideal. But a frequency distribution analysis might reveal that although 95% of the campaign’s reach was heard one or more times, 18% of your station’s listeners heard the message less than 3 times, 42% between 3 and 10 times, 18% between 10 and 15 times and a further 22% heard it more than 15 times., So the effective frequency of the campaign would only be 42% in spite of a significant client investment.
By reworking the campaign a sales person should be able to increase the effective frequency while cutting the cost of the campaign substantially; enough to add a second radio station to the promotion, delivering even better results for the client.
4. Stop Taking Bad Deals
Stations sometimes take business they know won’t work for the client. Manager’s need to meet quota and compensation by 100% commission encourages stations and reps to take business quickly and move on to the next sale - but this is another matter for another day.
