A friend of mine, a former GM, sent me an email to explain that she is now working with a program that links radio stations and their websites with couponing. I’m guessing that some of this is confidential, so to be safe I’ll leave out the details.
But the point is: This is a good idea.
I have been advising clients to eliminate what used to be an advantage for newspapers. And enlarge the idea further idea through social marketing. Don’t just do a mediocre offer. Do a great offer. Tweet it. Put a tight time limit on it. And then, tell your on-air audience what they could have gotten in on. And give them a way to join in. Monitor the response. Fine-tune your offers, your promotion, everything.
Hint: Talk to restaurants. Talk to movie theatres. Unused ingredients or poorly attended wine tastings and empty seats are worth nothing.
Radio can be a wonderful bullhorn that grabs attention at the local level and channels people to places and opportunities to connect with advertisers in ways that are beneficial to both. Radio’s reach at the local level is unmatched. We have to be a funnel. As Seth Godin says, you should not think of an audience of 100,000. You should think of 100 tribes of 1,000 people.
And understand that the local car dealer doesn’t want or care about your audience of 100,000. He wants 5 people to come in and test drive a new car.
Deer Caught in the Headlights?
But I have to say that right now I am shocked at how hard it is to convince radio people to believe that anything is worth an additional investment of time and expense. Part of the problem is that people have cut back so much on staffing that there’s nobody left to do anything else, whether it is write a blog, build a Facebook page to involve the listeners, or show up at a big community event. Saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my 39 years in radio.
It is like they are paralyzed, afraid to move in any direction. Afraid of getting fired, perhaps?
Clichés, but I think also the truth:
1. You can’t shrink your way to greatness.
2. Innovate!*
*Today!
