The spring ratings begin April 3 if you’re in a diary market. Plan now for a successful sweep. As you drive through the spring each week, consider these “Rules of the Road” – the drive to get higher ratings. Create a plan to take your station from its present audience share in the last ratings to higher numbers in spring. These ten checkpoints may be crucial in plotting your roadmap:
- Set strategic goals, plan your rating strategy based on carefully evaluating previous ratings, and execute your plan superbly. Enlarging cume and TSL often requires different tactics. Core listeners (P1s) are essential to ratings since these are the people most likely to lengthen TSL. But a balance of core and cume audience is also important, so focus on satisfying both.
- Bolster your time spent listening. The easiest way to get more AQH listening is expanding TSL. Find out what listeners want, give it to them, and do everything you can to keep these core listeners happy and listening. Structure programming to keep the average listener longer each time they tune in. Also, set more listening appointments by frequently promoting ahead. Give listeners reasons to tune in (or tune back in) more frequently. This helps even the “dial-puncher” to listen longer. Develop expectations when promoting ahead; tease and please.
- Don’t stop forward motion in music sweeps or call attention to stopsets. Create an integrated programming continuity style with transitions that are seamless and forward-moving. Avoid “punchout lines” that give listeners a reason to tune out. Don’t telegraph a stopset by saying, “We’ll be right back” or “Back in two minutes.”
- Market the dial position aggressively. It’s what 90% of FM listeners write in their diaries. Listeners must know your location as well as your brand name. The brand is your DNA; identity and uniqueness are crucial. Make your brand a household word.
- Constantly say the station name and dial position on the air – over and over. Repetition builds recognition. Create produced imaging that sells listener benefits and reasons to listen.
- Become #1 at work. Promote the station to people who can listen to it the longest – and at locations where long listening spans occur. Promoting to the working person makes sense because those listening at work have long TSL. Create contests that reward listening at work. Working people have more opportunities to tune to radio, and 8 AM to 5 PM is truly Nielsen’s longest daypart!
- Continually market the station. Brand strategy marketing is more important than hit-and-miss marketing games. The station brand and what you do (your positioning statement) should be continually promoted on air and in other media. The best position is unique, credible, and beneficial – the magic words communicating your station’s unique usage benefits.
- Why do people listen? Know why people come to your station and why they stay. At most FMs, a combination of the 3 M’s – Music, Mornings, and Marketing – forms the framework for top ratings. Play the best music for your core audience, have a great personality morning show, and market like crazy on and off the air.
- Concentrate on talent basics. Work with talents to hone their profession. Watch brevity, interest, idle chatter, and the dreaded Screeching Halt Disease. Edit conversations to leave listeners wanting more, not less. Improve talent enthusiasm, energy, flow, listener interaction, payoffs, and portability (info listeners can use all day). In radio royalty, Content is King, and Execution is Queen.
- Watch your competitors. Set a future path with vision and direction, and know every competitive move and change. Adjust accordingly when needed.
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John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming consulting firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. Did you find this article useful? You can leave a comment below or email John at John@Lundradio.com.