25 Ways To Improve Your Radio Station’s Ratings
(mp3 seminar download)
Ross Brittain, Gary Burbank and The Greaseman, recorded at my Air Personality Plus+ seminar in 1991.
April, 1997:
The month began with a return engagement for the Maine Association of Broadcasters (Air Personality Plus+ and How To Create Maximum Impact Radio Advertising).
Suzanne Goucher and her husband, Chuck, picked me up at the airport in Portland and drove me to Augusta. Suzanne was concerned about what I might write in this newsletter when describing the visit. Unfortunately, nothing dramatic occurred during this trip, so Suzanne has nothing to be embarrassed about (except for possibly having been seen in a vehicle with me).
After my two days of seminars, I hitched a ride back to Portland with Rob “Spud” Sobczak.
The following week brought me back to New England, where I presented Real Life + Radio = 100% Local Every Day for Doug Harris’ Adventures in Broadcasting’s annual Promotion Directors School in my hometown of Hartford, Connecticut.
Next: My first visit to Singapore. Hint: The two primary hobbies of Singaporeans are shopping and eating.
Every now and then I get a question that defies a rational answer.
Like this one:
“My radio station needs to earn additional revenue outside of sponsors and advertisers. Do you have any recommendations?”
A commercial radio station that needs to attract additional revenue that involves neither advertisers nor sponsors.
Hmm.
A few quick ideas off the top of my head….
• Rent the transmitter to people trying to communicate with distant galaxies.
• Lease your interns as slave labor.
• Convert the production room into a meth lab. (That might require only
minimal changes.)
A friend of mine added this suggestion:
• Lease double-wide mobile home plots in the parking lot.
Actually, that suggestion isn’t as inconceivable as you might think. I know of a certain major market radio station — call letters you would recognize — that on weekends rents out its conference room for private meetings.
Perhaps you, too, have some suggestions?
Many readers don’t know who Arthur Godfrey was; many others only vaguely recognize the name.
Although I remember him from being on TV when I was a kid, I was much too young to fit his target audience.
But Godfrey was a master of Radio as a one-to-one communication medium. And he was known for his folksy, personal, live commercials.
Here is Godfrey’s definition of the only two elements required of a successful commercial:
“Listen to what I’m saying….
“….and believe what I’m telling you.”
He was right.
Get your target audience to pay attention to your sales message.
And get them to believe your sales message.
Nothing else matters.
