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Advice

Monday Memo: Leapfrog Legacybox

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — National media does well selling products, most of which aren’t manufactured locally. Local media does best selling services, which are inherently local. National advertisers selling services are disadvantaged, because the Help Wanted sign is everywhere, the U.S. Postal Service is crippled by politics, and supply chain issues haunt every industry.

Example? One of network radio’s biggest advertisers, currently disappointing me and countless others. And I see opportunity.

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Sales

Pending Business: You Only Know What You Know

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — That’s what happens when most of your sales or management life is spent at one station or in one market.

On the one hand, you know your station and market inside out. You are the tour guide who can navigate the advertiser through every fork in the road. You are proud of your station’s heritage and conversant with the demographics, psychographics, and socioeconomic profile of the population that resides in your coverage area. Rates, packages, program lineups, and historical revenue figures are at the tip of your tongue. Any out of the ordinary question is answered with a fast access, “Let me get back to you.” All are important traits that are critical components for top sellers and managers.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Repeat After Me

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — The Redfin TV ad ends: “Sell for more than the home next door.” Write local retailers’ commercial copy that communicates a consumer benefit that succinctly – and repeat it and repeat it — and your clients will renew.
QUICK QUIZ, from the auto insurance battle-royal:

“Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.”

Geico…slugging-it-out with…

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Opinions

The Vastness of Night

By Editor | by Editor

by Walter Sterling
Talk Show Host

 

NEW YORK — The two most effective, engaging forms of advertising are in-theatre and overnight radio. Surrounded by darkness without distractions, the audience choses to receive the advertising message in the comfort of a bed, perfectly adjusted car seat, or reclining throne.

Overnight radio is 25% of the broadcast day. Twenty-five percent. A locally hosted all-night show in a major city is a gift to listeners and advertisers. The audience identifies with the references made by their neighbor, the radio host. Bonding is immediate.

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Sales

Pending Business: Howdy Partner

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Somewhere along the line someone changed the lyrics.
Our advertisers, our customers, became “partners.” Now that’s weird.

Do our advertisers (customers) really want a partnership in the true sense of the word? Or do our advertisers want what everyone else wants: maximum value at the best price?

Supermarkets don’t call shoppers partners, yet we are regular spenders seeking value for the dollar, same with the gas station. No partners at the produce section or the gas pump, just us regular customers.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Gas Cards? Or… Bitcoin?

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — In the past 12 months, Bitcoin has bounced between just-under $32K to just-over $65K. And saying “free gas” is the new “SQUIRREL!” So promoting a contest which awards the winner this prize choice WILL earn your station immeasurable word-of-mouth and could multiply Time Spent Listening.
If $65K has you coughing-up-blood, exhale:

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Sales

Pending Business: Drop These Excuses and Earn More

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Here is a tip or two to help you increase your income.

Drop these two old school excuses from your sales banter and get closer to the winning side of your business interactions.

I am as serious as your commission check. What I am about to share, fresh from the field, is as old as your first pocket calculator with the same limitations of performance, yet I hear this day after day in my marketing work. It’s old, tired, and needs to go.

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Advice

Monday Memo: RIP Bill Balls

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — The 1970s-sounding “Star Wars” type lasers and WHOOSH that still plague sound-alike station imaging now seem as dated as those 1960s TV “Batman” fight-scene graphics: “POW!” And doggedly dodging them all is the Central Casting baritone, shouting or growling-through whatever copy the station sends.

“To stand out, take whatever you think is normal, and do the exact opposite.”

50 years ago, I was an English teacher; and I’ve been assigning reading ever since. And here’s a page-turner that will not only inform your station’s on-air marketing, it may inspire your career.

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Sales

Pending Business: Raising Your Rates?

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Last week was one for the media history books. For stock market watchers, last Friday was a nauseating roller coaster ride. In case you were off the grid, here’s just a taste.

Netflix lost $50 billion in value, CNN+ shut down after a month, Meta (Facebook) has already lost almost half its value, and Elon Musk may still wind up with Twitter. A top 50-market radio station we use in my marketing work raised rates by 250% as ratings slid.

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Advice

Monday Memo: NAB, Long Time No See

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

LAS VEGAS — As we did for CES here in January, we were asked to submit vaccination details to an app to earn a QR entry code. Once inside, there are still some masks, and – after three years – lots of hugs. The National Association of Broadcasters wanted to mash-up what had been separate autumn Radio Shows and perennial April NAB Shows this past October…until the Omicron kibosh.

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Sales

Pending Business: The Anecdote

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — News and talk radio sellers are boring.

Sorry if I offended you. But that’s what I see in the marketing work I do.

It’s all about numbers on paper. If ratings are not part of the pitch, it comes down to a laundry list of predictable guests, a boilerplate bio, and whatever else is fast and easy.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Spring Cleaning

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — You’re expecting a metaphor. When a consultant says “Spring Cleaning,” you brace for a checklist of tough choices when Spring ratings come in. Seems quaint, with so little programming now local.

 Take me literally

My utterly cluttered home office was long overdue. During the four-plus years an abruptly concluded TV career ate three days of my week, that room became a catch-all I swore I’d catch-up-with…eventually.

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Features

Life-Changing Event in the Flesh

By Editor | by Editor

By Mike Kinosian
TALKERS magazine
Managing Editor

 

COOKEVILLE, Ten. — Positive outcomes haven’t exactly been the norm for several radio talk show hosts who’ve been hospitalized in the COVID-era.

Spoiler Alert: Don’t read any further unless you want to see how a popular Cookeville, Tennessee personality fashioned a warm & fuzzy post-hospital story and is now enjoying a new lease on life.

On its own, this is the type of feel-good scenario all of us can applaud; the element further enhancing it regards the part the medium itself played.

Those adhering to the English proverb, “Good things come to those who wait,” will undoubtedly nod in approval for what appears below.

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Sales

Pending Business: It Should Be Easy

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — How easy is it to do business with you?

I’m betting it’s more difficult than you think. Most professional sellers rarely “eat their own dog food,” as in be the advertiser at your talk radio station.

Try this exercise. Be the client trying to make an advertising inquiry. Is the experience of going through the switchboard at your station friendly or is it the typical “if you know your party’s extension….”? Is it a confidence builder or killer as you go undercover and try to navigate becoming an advertiser?

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Advice

Monday Memo: Bad News

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — And the hits just keep-on comin.’ “Hits,” literally! For a couple days, that Chris Rock-Will Smith moment upstaged even the horrors in Ukraine. And now the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice is in hot water. Infamy is nothing new. Remember the congressman who said that “in cases of ‘legitimate rape,’ the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down?” Or when John Lennon said, “We’re more popular than Jesus?”

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Sales

Pending Business: The Talk Radio Metaverse

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Imagine the next wave.

The Great Town Hall Debate is a video game designed by experts, where players pick political parties, moderators, topics, questions, debaters, venue and media coverage. Can our video game be so advanced you can program facial expressions, gesture reactions, even voice volume and inflection? Maybe some gaming wizard is working on the concept as you read this, or maybe not. But let’s go with it for a minute and sell it.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Good News

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Too often, we — news/talk radio – are the bearer of bad news.

  • Listeners (and advertisers) were already stressed.
  • The pandemic knocked the entire world off-balance.
  • Pain-at-the-pump? Everyone feels inflation everywhere.
  • Much of what we CAN afford remains snarled in supply chain snafus.
  • And polls demonstrate that Americans are pained over war in Ukraine.

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Advice

Save a Life, Maybe Your Own

By Editor | by Editor

By Jon Quick
JonQConsulting
President/Founder

 

CARMEL, Ind. — I usually write about programming in this space. Today I am writing about a promotional idea that can result in extraordinary returns. It saves lives. I also have an ulterior motive.

Consider teaming up with a local hospital or medical group and do a health fair. Offer free admission to your listeners. Give them information on healthy eating, ways to quit smoking, the best exercise, cholesterol and other on-site testing and demonstrations. Not an original idea, of course, but one worth doing on a regular basis. There are also many programming and sponsorship opportunities here.

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Sales

Pending Business: Marketing Madness

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Have you noticed the marketing driving the madness this March? The marketing machine seems to be present everywhere — especially the sports book marketing. It’s reinventing how marketers use some old school media.

Last time we noticed, our friends in the bus shelter business simply painted bus bench backs or posted large signage in the bus shelters. This static advertising supported branding, location-based ads, and in the case of the old school bus bench, catchy phrase, logo or headshot and phone number.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Is Your Show the Dog? Or the Tail?

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Lots of response to last week’s “Weekend Warriors, Renegotiate.” SOME stations were horrified by what I’m telling their brokered ask-the-expert hosts. SMART stations already offer the win-win template I outlined. ICYMI: https://www.talkers.com/2022/03/21/monday-memo-weekend-warriors-renegotiate/

 FMs are scrambling. AMs? Ugh.

As if AM wasn’t already suffering listener demographics, technical interference, caricature programming, and too little local content, now comes the proposal to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. From November through February – when local sunrise would come between 8:00 am and 9:00 am – later pattern and power change times would cripple full-time stations. Daytimers would be utterly screwed if smart ones with translators hadn’t already rebranded as FMs (as have so many full-time AMs).

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Sales

Pending Business: Reimagining How News/Talk is Sold

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Maybe it’s time take a minute and reimagine how news/talk radio is sold. I am serious. Because your company is offering audio options like:

1) Fight clutter with less inventory.

2) Offer host-read endorsements.

3) On-demand.

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Advice

Monday Memo: Weekend Warriors, Renegotiate

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Weekend ask-the-expert shows exploit the most proven concept in marketing: free samples.

Common example: The lawyer is in, the meter is off. Q+A about callers’ situations is relatable to other listeners. And hearing the attorney’s approachable manner, prospective clients come to know him or her better than others whose look-alike billboards and boastful TV commercials all blur together.

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Features

Today’s David Grapples Goliath with Problem/Solution

By Editor | by Editor

By Mike Kinosian
TALKERS magazine
Managing Editor

 

TAMPA — When we profiled WRVA, Richmond’s Jeff Katz in this space last week (TALKERS, Wednesday, 3/9), the afternoon drive talent echoed one particular concern shared by many of his peers regarding talk radio’s future.

Specifically questioned was the depth of news/talk radio’s farm system and the source of the format’s next wave of great on-air personalities.

One budding star though might very well be developing in Central Florida: That’s where David Gornoski has been paying his dues as a podcaster and station talent, using “A Neighbor’s Choice” as his program’s unique umbrella title.

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Sales

Pending Business: Happy Mother’s Day

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Let me be the first to predict this year will be one of the biggest Mother’s Day sales cycles on record. Call me crazy, but everything on my broadcast sales radar is pointing in the right direction and the wind should be at your back. See if this fits your profile:

  • Inventory is tightening.
  • Mandatory mask mandates are declining at restaurants and retail.
  • Your 2022 sales are ahead of 2021.
  • Your on-air talent lineup is the best you’ve had in a while.
  • You are totally on board with digital and social media.
  • Mother’s Day packages are locked and loaded.
  • Prospects are prioritized.
  • Everyone loves and honors Mom.

Yes? No? Maybe?

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Advice

Monday Memo: Your Egg-Timer?

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Baseball stations: Exhale. WE HAVE A DEAL. As you read this, Spring Training is underway, and Opening Day is April 7.

We need it. Pandemic-weary and weathering climate change, we’ve been tested. Now, the Ukraine crisis breaks our hearts and inflation busts family budgets. And one of baseball’s best showed me a simple trick that suggests how radio can matter more to listeners in these challenging times.

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Opinions

NAB’s First Amendment Defense a Farce

By Editor | by Editor

By Pete Schartel
KCXL-AM
Owner

 

LIBERTY, Kan. — It is my patriotic duty alert fellow broadcasters that last week the new driver of the National Association of Broadcasters threw both our cherished First Amendment right of free speech and the preservation of independent broadcast voices under the bus by calling for the silencing of broadcasters that carry Russian-sponsored programming.

New NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt states that “the NAB is a fierce defender of the First Amendment.” Perhaps he should have used the word “farce” instead. Advocating to shut down independent radio stations, such as my own which has zealously practiced the American ideal of creating a fully informed electorate, doesn’t strike me as being a “fierce defender.” Since his statement came out during meetings with 300 lawmakers it seems more plausible that this was a knee-jerk attempt to make them like him by playing on public sympathy and emotion.

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Features

A Rich Man’s True Jewels

By Editor | by Editor

By Mike Kinosian
TALKERS magazine
Managing Editor

 

RICHMOND, VA. — Whether fair or not, market size/overall reach has been elevated as being an individual broadcaster’s dominant barometer of success.

Countless news/talk shows are heard on terrestrial, satellite, and internet radio, as well as through podcasts and other new media streams, yet it would hardly be a stretch to venture that a wildly significant number of news/talk hosts are fervently vying to become the next Rush Limbaugh.

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Sales

Pending Business: King Content

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — If “content is king,” then what is sales?

The sports world seems to be redefining how we view value and utilize king content. The trailblazer is arguably the biggest brand in sports: the National Football League.

The NFL wrote the book on how constant improvement and innovation, especially in media coverage, could drive a brand to unmatched heights in event marketing, viewership, influence, and income. It is no accident the NFL is now in the spotlight again moving the media innovation needle to 5.0.

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Advice

Monday Memo: The Lightning Round

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

 

BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Grab the arm rest! Validating the consultant stereotype, here are 9-ideas-in-8-minutes…

  1. Effective commercial copy point: “It’s time to get together again.”

Seen those Applebee’s TV spots featuring the old “Cheers” theme? Instant feel-good.

Pandemic fatigue = cabin fever. So restaurants – and other retailers offering an experience – want to sound inviting.

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Features

Holland Cooke Exits RT America

By Editor | by Editor

By Holland Cooke
Consultant

BLOCK ISLAND, RI – How’s THAT for timing? On February 19, my bride and I jetted-off to sunny Nassau, to exhale. Airports were mobbed, with school vacation week and the Presidents’ Day holiday upon us. And unlike those sudden vacations that Fox News faux pas sometimes trigger, this getaway really was booked months in advance.

The night before, on what became my last TV show, I asked viewers “WHY DO American corporate mainstream media seem impatient for war in Ukraine?” Eager to own the story, ABC, CBS, NBC and cable news channels had been beating the drum for weeks, as President Biden told us with certainty invasion was imminent while President Putin amassed the biggest deployment since World War II. Merely “tense” when our trip began, the world was at war when we got home.

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Features

100 Points! Impossible!

By Editor | by Editor

By Mark Wainwright
Talk Host/Voice Talent

 

SYRACUSE — It’s hard to believe in 2022 that NBA teams of the past struggled – sometimes desperately – to sell tickets. Decades ago, NBA clubs would often schedule “home” games in smaller nearby towns to drum up interest. That’s why the Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks were playing a Philadelphia “home” game in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Friday night, March 2, 1962.

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Sales

Pending Business: Sell Carefully

By Editor | by Editor

By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President

 

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — As I write this week’s column, events in Russia, the Ukraine, and around the world are driving the content on news/talk radio stations everywhere. Whether it’s all-news, a local talk show, or a nationally or regionally syndicated program, the world is talking, watching, listening, posting, tweeting, documenting and sharing.

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