DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

“It is unlawful to send unsolicited advertisements to any fax machine, including those at both businesses and residences, without the recipient’s prior express invitation or permission.”

MEMO

To: All Corporate Employees

From: Human Resources Dept.

Re: Vacation Update 2 for 1 Employee Special

Reply To: 1-888-587-9481

I’m fairly well-known as a big proponent of Show Prep. But in my seminars I warn jocks:

If you do what we’re talking about; if you constantly stay aware of what’s happening in your community; if you always walk into the studio prepared…You can expect to be ridiculed.

“Oh, isn’t that cute? You’ve got your little notebook of ‘show prep.’ You know, a real professional doesn’t need to prepare. A real pro knows how to ad lib. ‘Spontaneity,’ ever hear of it?”

If you’re always prepared before your show, sooner or later you will hear that from someone else at your station.

Invariably, it’s some older jock (always a male, for some reason) whose claim to fame is that he once worked in a “big market.” Let’s say your station is in Grand Rapids; he once worked in Detroit.

For a few weeks.

Then he left Detroit and has spent the past 20 years in smaller markets.

Why did he leave the Big Market?

“Politics. The PD played favorites, and I refused to kiss his ass. So instead of staying there and playing that game, I left.”

Strangely, this guy never says, “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t good enough. Plus, I had a lousy attitude, so they fired me.”

This guy couldn’t make it in the big leagues. He’s bitter, he despises his job, and he’s jealous of anyone who has achieved any level of success. Also, he hates your enthusiasm for radio, because in the distant reaches of his memory he recalls when he felt that passion.

That emptiness hurts. He hasn’t found anything to replace it, other than a couple of very unhealthy addictions, several marriages, a bankruptcy or two, and an aggressively negative attitude.

When that guy ridicules you, don’t take it personally. Stepping on your dreams is just so much easier than owning up to his own failures.

Ann DeWig is a terrific voice actor as well as a friend.

A while ago she was shopping for a new designer for her website, and she asked me to take a look at what he was suggesting for her.

I hated it.

Yesterday Ann proudly sent me the link to her new website, explaining that she had fired the previous designer in favor of one who was more interested in doing what Ann wanted her site to do than in creating something “artistic.”

Foolishly, Ann asked for my opinion of the new site.

I went to the site and started making notes. Finally I thought, “Why am I spending all this time writing this when I have so much work of my own to do? In fact, my site always needs improving, and for some reason I ‘never can find the time’ to fix some areas that obviously need fixing.

“Heck,” I thought, “if I’m going to do all this writing, at least I should turn it into a blog post.”

So I emailed Ann and said, “I’ll send you my comments if you let me publish them on my blog. But remember, you can expect me to be a bit critical.”

Ann replied, “I don’t know if you recall, but when you saw what the other programmer wanted to do your first words were, ‘Wow, makes me want to vomit.’ I don’t see how you could be much more critical than that, so go ahead.”

Ann DeWig’s Website should open in a new window.

Here are my notes. The good news is the new site doesn’t make me want to vomit. (I wasn’t being metaphorical; the earlier version was visually nauseating.)

• Glad the audio streams so fast, very impressive.

• Same for the video.

• White text on a light grey background? You’re doing that just as a practical joke on me, right? You’ll not going to leave it that way, right? And TINY white text? Hint: Any time your visitor has to lean in to read something on your site, you screwed up.

• If I want to send you a letter (perhaps containing a check?) and I copy & paste your contact info, here’s what it looks like:

atlas talent agency
15 e 32nd st
6th fl
new york, ny 10016

Any particular reason you’re forcing me to clean up the text — capitalizing words, putting the period after “e,” etc.? I can’t think of a good one….

(In the previous designer’s version, the contact information was presented as a graphic. Really dumb, because the people who want to make note of your contact info usually copy & paste it. You can’t copy & paste text on a graphic. So even this version is an improvement.)

• The horizontal list of videos scrolls WAY too fast. You’re making people back up to try to get to that thing that just flashed before their eyes. Again, you’re making people do extra work for no good reason.

• All the type that presents information — text links, your contact info, etc. — is too small. You want the words to come to the eyes, not to make people look more closely to read them. (Especially when you’ve already made it harder by using reversed text.)

Want to know the name of Ann’s agent? Good luck, here’s a magnifying glass.

And even then we’re not going to tell you; you need to decode it from his email address. Not terribly difficult to decode, but why not just come right out and TELL PEOPLE HIS NAME?

• Movement Attracts the Eye. Which means:

A) “Playlist loaded – Click Play” should not continuously move horizontally. Either make it static…Have it scroll just once and then be static…or dump the text altogether and instead make the “play” button flash.

B) Your panel of credits shouldn’t change, because it distracts the eye from whatever it’s trying to do at that moment…and “read my credits” is not your #1 goal. Perhaps give it a scroll bar, perhaps convert it to a “Special Clients” link.

• I click on “bloopers,” filled with anticipation…and what do I get? “Coming soon!”

Okay, another practical joke on me, right? You’re not REALLY asking people to click on a link that you know leads nowhere, are you?

You’re not REALLY making a promise to your Web visitor (“Click on this link to see or hear some bloopers!”) that you know you’re not going to keep?

You’re not REALLY, knowingly lying to your visitors, are you?

When the bloopers are ready, then put up that link.

• What’s the Call To Action? What do you want the first-time visitor to do?

I see you have a password protected section, so I assume clients can do stuff there. But the rest of your home page — why is it there? To entertain people? To encourage potential clients to contact you? If so, to contact you to do…what? To ask about your rates, your market availability? To schedule a consultation?

• After all I’ve said, believe it or not I think this is going to be a terrific website. You just need to look at all those elements and ask, “Am I making it extra easy or extra difficult for people to do what I want them to do?”

If you saw Monday’s Commercial Smackdown, you might recall my saying the #1 objection “laser eye surgery” places need to overcome in their radio advertising is Fear.

Here’s a commercial that’s running for one of their competitors right now. Notice what they focus on most:

Is that a great commercial? No, but it’s effective… especially as part of a drip-drip-drip Chinese water torture campaign that eventually wears down the fear-driven resistance.

They touch upon the “expensive” objection at the end, which doesn’t help but does no real damage.

As their competitor did, they give a vanity phone number and a numeric number. Dumb.

And they give both a phone number and a Web address — nearly always a bad idea. You’ve heard me say it before: In a radio commercial, choice paralyzes response.