Today’s programmers are hyper-focused on reducing clutter. That’s good, but in some cases, it has led to poor promotion and marketing decisions. Radio shows must be promoted to be successful, but not all shows are equally promotable. Promotion can’t make a bad show popular, but potentially great shows may never reach their potential without support. The problem is identifying which shows should be promoted aggressively and which aren’t ready for the spotlight. Once you’ve determined whether your show has the potential to lead your radio station forward, it’s time to develop a strategy for morning show promos.
Imagine an Italian restaurant that wants to grow its customer base. How should it promote itself? Should it try to reach those who prefer Mexican food? Maybe, but that would be time-consuming and probably not very cost-effective. Of course, they need to find potential customers who like Italian food. However, to reach new customers, they must advertise to a much larger audience, which wastes much of the cost of delivering the message in traditional media. Then consider that those they reach with their message may not respond because they probably already have a favorite Italian restaurant.
Their key to immediate success is to direct ads only to those who have been in an Italian restaurant in the past week, with a clear focus on those who have come to their restaurant. They’ve demonstrated they like it, so attracting them to return would be quite effective.
Apply This Lesson To Your Station
The fastest way to increase your ratings or top-of-mind awareness is with an ad campaign on your radio station. Even high-performing shows attract fewer than half of the station’s total weekly cume, which is a valuable audience to recruit. For the majority of radio stations, fewer than 40% of the station’s total cume tune in to the morning show. These are prime candidates. They already like something about the radio station. They’ve been to your “restaurant” in the past week. They’re the perfect target audience. And you can promote for free as long as your show meets specific criteria:
Is It Worthy? Don’t assume promotion is the only missing ingredient for a show with a low cume conversion. Maybe the show isn’t worth promotion! Objectively evaluate the show’s strengths and weaknesses. Promote it when it’s strongest. Advertising a not-ready-for-prime-time product usually does more harm than good.
Are They Committed? Shows must invest time and energy in creating amazing (not just good)morning show promos.
Have a Plan: Each promo should accomplish at least one of three things: demonstrate character traits for the show’s personalities, showcase the show’s mood and attitude, and set an appointment to listen at a key time. If the show isn’t willing to devote the resources to making great promos, don’t promote it!
Is The Cart Behind The Horse? Most morning shows can’t make a bad station successful. Avoid promoting a show until the station brand is well established. Until then, use the morning show as spokespeople for your brand, connecting with the audience on core brand values they appreciate from your station position.
Conclusion
It’s hard to inspire listeners to change habits and tune into radio stations at different times of the day. But the very people who are most likely to be influenced by an advertising message (and that’s what promos are) already listen. All you have to do is give them reasons to listen more. And isn’t that easier than recruiting new listeners to try you out?
Pic designed by kamranaydinov for Freepik.com.
Tracy Johnson is a talent coach and programming consultant. He’s the President/CEO of Tracy Johnson Media Group. His book Morning Radio has been described as The Bible of Personality Radio and has been used by personalities worldwide.