By Holland Cooke
Consultant
We – inside-the-box – live and breathe radio. Listeners have their hands full just living and breathing. Their day is time crunched and financially challenging, and we want to be its soundtrack.
But listening is free, unlike umpteen other purchase decisions they agonize. So, what’s high stakes to us is low stakes to them. We only matter if we matter, and we’ve never had so much audio competition. Accordingly, this exercise, which has been helpful at stations I work with:
Describe the listener your station targets. Then ask other staffers.
— Is everyone profiling the same person?
— Does your programming content address their needs and wants?
— Is station imaging about the station? Or their needs and wants?
— Do commercials offer solutions? Are you missing categories?
Well worth the investment in conference room pizza.
Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. He is the author of “The Local Radio Advantage: Your 4-Week Tune-In Tune-Up” and “Close Like Crazy: Local Direct Leads, Pitches & Specs That Earned the Benjamins” and “Confidential: Negotiation Checklist for Weekend Talk Radio.” Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn