DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

At my personality radio seminars, I teach the power of the on-air “tease.”

Often someone will ask me, “How far in advance can you tease something?”

Here’s the formula:

“The bigger the explosion, the longer the fuse.”

Got it?

As part of a Radio Advertising Advantage “Radio 911” telephone consultation, a radio station sales manager asked if I had any ideas for a relatively new client: a small, independently owned hardware store. Just one location, in the center of a small town.

The store didn’t seem to have any obvious Unique Selling Proposition (lowest prices, free delivery, etc.).

So I thought about my own rare ventures into hardware stores and quickly realized a key emotion that I suspect is felt by many customers:

Fear.

Not heart palpitating, sweat producing, shortness of breath inducing fear.

More like uneasiness, a pronounced uncomfortableness.

Will I be able to find the tool or accessory I need?

How will I know which item to buy?

How will I know how many or what size I’ll need?

If I can’t find what I need, will a store employee be able to help me? Will they laugh at my ignorance?

This immediately led me to suggest a very powerful strategy utilized by too few advertisers: Education.

I suggested a series of commercials in which the store owner answers the most common questions posed by do-it-yourselfers in a relaxed, conversational, non-threatening manner:

Hi, I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store. A wrench is a pretty simple tool.

But if you ask someone to hand you a wrench, they might say, “Which wrench do you want? Pipe wrench? Monkey wrench? Crescent? Open-ended? Box wrench?”

Here’s a quick & easy explanation of the differences. (EXPLANATION GOES HERE.)

We carry so many different kinds of wrenches … and hammers, and saws, and screws & nails all kinds of thingamajigs and whatchamacallems…because we want to make sure we have exactly what you need.

Having helped thousands of (LOCAL) handymen & women, carpenters, electricians, and part-time fixer-uppers over the past 45 years, you can pretty much count on our having what you’re looking for.

And if you’re not sure what it’s called, don’t worry; we’ll know.

I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store in Smalltown, on Main Street, right across from the Post Office. Stop by today; we’re here to help.”

Where would you rather shop:

At a hardware store where the clerks don’t know and don’t care?

Or at a hardware store where the clerks are eager to answer your questions without making your feel stupid?

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S., and between the turkey and the football not many people will visit this blog today.

If I write about radio, six people will read this.

And I don’t want to write one of those “I’m thankful for…” essays.

But somehow it seems natural to share with you two powerful musical performances. There’s a good chance you’ve seen one or both of them, along with millions of others on YouTube.

Still….

I thought John Cale had the definitive version of this Leonard Cohen song until I witnessed kd Lang’s performance.

Not saying one is better. Just different.

Cale’s is mournful. Lang’s is anguished.

I will say, though, that I had a better understanding of what the song’s about after hearing Lang.

Anyway…Happy Thanksgiving, my radio brethren around the world.

Jason Potter writes:

“I just wanted to let you know how much I LOVE the math problem authentication for leaving comments on your blog. (ok, maybe ‘love’ is too strong of a word for something like this…maybe ‘enjoy’ or ‘appreciate’ is more appropriate?)

“It is so annoying to try to read the normal, swirling combination of letters and numbers when ‘authenticating’ on other web sites. As always, you took the boring and mundane and have found a way to make it your own!”

In my radio morning show coaching, I teach how to build a “brand” for the program that is so strong it gets credit for things it doesn’t even do.

Example: You own the “celebrities visit in-studio” position in your market and someone hears a big celebrity on a different local station but assumes it must be your show.

Jason’s complimentary words are an example of “getting credit for things you didn’t even do.”

Often I find the traditional CAPTCHA format to be incredibly annoying. (Is there a reason that Google, of all places, routinely offers the hardest-to-read characters?)

A while ago I stumbled upon a website that used the “arithmetic” solution method. Because one of my few skills is the ability to add or subtract 1- or 2-digit numbers in my head (which served me well in my days as a semi-professional card counting blackjack player), I loved it. No more repeated attempts to decipher blurred images.

So I emailed my webmaster a link to that page and asked, “Can we do this on my blog?” The new CAPTCHA was in place the next day.

Jason flatteringly assumed:

1. I looked for a method that would be more “fun” for my blog visitors. Actually, I was just trying to make it easier for people and to remove the hassle factor. (Which is related to “more fun,” but not the same thing.)
2. I found a way to make “prove you’re not a robot” my own — possibly by creating it from scratch. In reality, I discovered the arithmetic method that someone else had created.

But because he hadn’t seen it elsewhere, Jason assumed I created it.

For Jason, at least, my “brand” = “more fun” and “original” — making whatever I do “my own.”

And he’s right: I do try to make mundane things enjoyable when possible. For example, the standard “404 Error” message that you get when you click on a broken link.

For years I assumed that was some sort of non-customizable Internet standard. But when I learned I could make that “error” page say or do anything I wanted, I changed it to what now happens when you click on this example of a broken link.