By Ryan Ghidoni
PSR Contributor
Thursday April 21st, 2016
Audio Active Advertising – Episode 14: In Radio Sales…you can’t always get what you want.
.
Great creative is the most powerful tool for retaining your clients and attracting new ones. You can spiff them with concert tickets, treat them to a round of golf BUT…if given the choice…every client would prefer an effective ad.
Unfortunately, the radio industry is not set up to provide every client with an effective ad every time. To quote Tim Murphy’s comment from a past column I posted:
“Most ads fail for one reason and one reason only. You have radio stations with 4-500 clients. You have radio stations with 3 maybe 4 copy writers. It is simply impossible for 4 copy writers to do due diligence to clients, when they have to pump out hundreds of spots. This is why production house’s take on so many clients. They provide good customer service.”
A close friend of mine explained the production side of the predicament. He didn’t have much time…so he was very concise:
“Quality, Quantity, and Quickness…you can only do two.”
In radio…QUANTITY and QUICKNESS frequently become the priority and QUALITY suffers. There are other unique circumstances that can lower the quality quotient. Let me know if one of these hits home:
Budgeting: Every department has a basket but the budget only has so many eggs. Some operations choose to back programming, promotions OR creative. It is rare to see a station where all three of these departments are flush with resources. Even within one company, the resource structure will be inconsistent from city to city.
The Lone Wolf: Somehow in the shuffle of acquisitions, sell offs, and trades…you ended up a stand alone station in a business full of cluster operations. Your creative department is a one person writing and production machine who fights each day to clear tomorrow’s missing spot report and has nobody to brainstorm with.
Low Morale: Maybe they don’t really like their job. Maybe they feel unappreciated. Maybe they’ve had one too many clients shoot down their extra effort. Unless there is something to maintain the excitement, it is easy for a radio creative to lose their spark and start rotating between Gear 1: Straight sell, and Gear 2: Two voicer where smart girl tells dumb guy about exciting new product.
The Wrong End of a HUB: The company got rid of the creative department that you could talk to and bounce ideas around with. You now send your client info off to another market and hope you get something good back. You and your two fellow remote reps are permanently parked behind the priorities of the thirteen local reps who work in the same building as the writers and producers at the hub.
The Talent Gap: Your current team lacks advanced writing, voicing or production skills. Every station goes through transitions where the “go to” person goes away or the budget dictates that its time to develop raw talent and hire right out of school. These periods can last 6 months to 6 years depending on your market size and your company’s access to internal and external training.
I want to shed light on these circumstances because…
Great ads are only possible when sales and creative understand each other’s perspective.
AND
I want to help.
In Radio Sales…you can’t always get what you want.
But now…You CAN get what you need.
This past Monday, Audio Active Advertising launched our online store.
http://www.audioactiveadvertising.com/store.html
Now you can get the same quality and service for your clients that, up until now, we’ve only offered to local businesses.
Expect the kind of creative that solidifies relationships with existing clients AND steals big clients away from your competitors.
But please understand that OUR SERVICE IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY.
At Audio Active Advertising, we take the “Quality, Quantity, and Quickness…you can only do two” mantra to heart and QUALITY always trumps the other two Qs.
We value our product, spend an excessive amount of time perfecting it, and have priced it accordingly. Our service is designed to secure your big clients who invest heavily in radio advertising. The ones that also prefer QUALITY over QUICKNESS.
We realize that QUANTITY is also a threat to QUALITY and have chosen to only take on 20 online advertising clients. Once we hit 20, our box ad (in the upper right corner of this website) will change to promote our Radio Imaging services and will only flip back to the current ad when one of the twenty slots are vacant.
We’d like to help more clients…so if you’re an exceptionally skilled radio writer, producer or voice actor…please send an intro email with samples of your passion to ry**@au********************.com. Our goal is to expand our current network of like-minded creatives so we can eventually guarantee QUALITY with a QUANTITY greater than 20.
We’ve designed two creative services:
Radio Single is an affordable “fresh look” at the sales message and is great for clients with an established strategy.
Radio Campaign is a full rebuild of the client’s radio strategy and includes all the right steps required to make a lasting impact.
Find out more about both services by clicking here:
http://www.audioactiveadvertising.com/store.html
Look…I know that this turned into an advertorial pretty quickly.
I’m currently picturing the scene from “A Christmas Story” where Ralphie Parker realizes the secret decoder message is a plug for Ovaltine.
“It’s a crummy commercial”
BUT…I’m extremely passionate about radio advertising and I’ve seen first hand what a great ad can do for a client’s business AND a sales person’s list. I’m excited about the online store and helping people in a wider scope.
Next week we’ll return to talking about effective radio creative without a catch.
Ryan Ghidoni is an 18-year veteran of radio advertising and has worked with some of the most creative sales reps, writers, producers and voice talent in the business.
CHECK OUT “Audio Active Advertising” every week on Puget Sound Radio.
THE ONLINE AGENCY IS OPEN: Get “Audio Active” ads for your clients with Audio Active Advertising’s online agency. Check out over 100 Effective Ad Examples and then become the next one by ordering a Radio Single OR a Radio Campaign. Go to audioactiveadvertising.com.
Email Ryan: Ry**@Au********************.com
