Radio Direct Response: Direct Response Radio Advertising Agency | Blog Zone

From time to time, we chat with our friends in radio about something other than avails, rates and marketing opportunities. Today, we share the thoughts and perspectives of CBS Local Sales Manager, Dan Baptiste, headquartered at Mix 104.3 FM and WODS 103.3 FM.

You’re a big believer in radio’s accountability. How do you see radio’s position on accountability and how that compares to other media?
Radio has always been accountable to results. If businesses did not see growth, they would not continue to advertise. As online advertising has become more and more mainstream, accountability has become a bigger conversation. But radio accountability must be viewed differently than online accountability. Radio gets your message out to a broad and massive audience, reaching both active and passive consumers. The brand endorsement, alignment and frequency with radio is a different advertising experience than display ads online. To that end though, radio’s online and streaming audience, in some cases, is now substantial enough to accomplish the accountability standards in the online space with those same products.

Radio’s making an excellent transition to the Web. But one of radio’s much-touted innovations, HD Radio, seems to have stalled at the starting gate. Do you see HD Radio with a place in the future of “all things radio?”
HD is in growth mode. The speed of that growth will be determined by the volume at which HD receivers are purchased and utilized. As more and more automotive manufacturers include HD radios in their vehicles, consumers will get accustomed to HD offerings. This would likely spur stand-alone sales of HD radios for office and home listening.

If this were to happen, how might HD change the rules of the game?
From a programming standpoint, on HD, radio Program Directors can try new things to see what the response is without running the risk of alienating your larger, traditional audience. For advertisers, HD may be a good transition from its non-commercial roots. That way, you can monetize the HD feeds without needing a large volume of clients and without loading up the feeds with commercials while the audience is still discovering it.

What’s the likelihood of this happening?
Again, without the audience and revenue, this will not be as major of a focus. Audience equals revenue which equals focus.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

We spoke with Tim Gratzer, General Sales Manager from KRBE in Houston for his views on radio, technology and the advertising marketplace in 2010.

What account categories are driving your revenue resurgence in 2010?
It really is not any one category on KRBE. We have more advertisers than we have had on the air in several years thanks to a renewed focus on diversifying our accounts. We don’t want what happened last year to ever repeat itself. Right now, we definitely see more Automotive coming back, but there is also a lot of retail, especially Furniture.

Do you think the move to put FM and FM HD in mobile phones will help radio?
I think anytime technology embraces our medium it is definitely to our advantage. When that technology actually extends our reach that is tremendous.

Where does HD stand?
I’m surprised HD has not taken off more by now, but until there is more accessibility to the product for listeners, broadcasters probably will limit its consideration.

How can HD Radio change things?
Eventually, I think it can give advertisers another access point to a station’s target or possibly hyper-target an audience within an audience. For example, KRBE could decide that in honor of Lady Gaga coming to Houston, we air 48 hours of Lady Gaga on our KRBE-HD2 station. The programming and sponsorship possibilities are endless, though you would have to make sure you extend your audience rather than cannibalize it.

How can radio best sell its online inventory?
KRBE is one of the first online radio stations to be rated by Arbitron’s PPM. We sell it similarly to our on-air inventory, by the commercial. It’s an entry-level access point for clients who still want a KRBE audience but cannot afford the big rates. Selling online has been traditionally most effective when sold in conjunction with an on-air schedule.

What is your perception of radio accountability?
I think we are more accountable than ever, especially with PPM data. While radio can do a great job with direct response, it is branding that product or service for long-term success where radio really excels, yet there is no immediate measurement for branding success. Our Account Executives are trained to know as much about our clients as possible by asking sometimes difficult, investigative questions. If a radio campaign fails, we are as much to blame as anyone for not managing that client’s expectations – whether it be allowing them to air non-effective copy, not advising them to bulk up a schedule without enough frequency or even expecting immediate results from an inconsistent, short-term campaign. Unfortunately, each time these expectations are mismanaged, the entire radio industry loses because the client thinks, “radio doesn’t work.” In all reality, it may just be that their particular Account Executive didn’t work.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Recently, I read an article about passion written by Monster.com senior writer, John Rossheim. And these three lines slapped me in the face:

“Whether it last happened today or 20 years ago, most of us have been hit with that pit-of-the-stomach, Monday-morning moment of questioning: Why do I work here? Is this all there is?”

One of the most important elements in having a successful career and a fulfilling life is “passion.” Without passion, a job is just a job and life is just a mundane exercise. Passion infuses one’s daily existence with a sense of being filled with enthusiasm and purpose.

Here at Radio Direct Response we’re populated with people who are passionate about radio in all of its forms. We’re just as passionate about how radio can produce measurable results for our clients and advertisers as we are about the content, information, entertainment and music found on the radio.

Passion Drives the Most Successful Careers.

Passion gives us the ability to withstand challenging times and to persevere through adversity. Most businesses go through trying times. Passionate leaders and employees steer the ship through troubled waters and anticipate the next round of success. We don’t give up.

“When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible.” - Unknown

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

RDR conducts business with countless radio stations across the country. Occasionally, we chat with them about the business of our business. In this case, we asked a few, key sales and account managers for their input on the best way to buy time on their stations for optimum results.

Laurie Stroud from Clear Channel Seattle stressed the importance of building a schedule based on each advertiser’s needs.

“If a client has a weekend sale, we’d recommend a high frequency, Wednesday to Sunday campaign, bundling :30s and :15s on-air with streaming ads and a Web Site Homepage Takeover for 24 hours. A local hospital that wants to brand itself as the premier birthing center, or cancer specialists, might do best with a “Medical Minute” or “Ask the Expert” fixed position, on-air campaign and a custom web page with FAQ’s and links.”

Philadelphia’s VP/GM Jim Loftus of the CBS Radio Group cites a diverse number of tactics an advertiser can employ to make the best use of different formats. “We have five radio stations in Philly. On KYW (All News), ROS is the best way. Live reads is the way to go on WIP (Sports Talk). Use prime rotators on WPHT (Talk). And a mix of daytime prime plus nights and weekends on WOGL (Oldies) and WYSP (Rock).”

Peggy Barrett at The Ride (WXRC) in Charlotte recommends attention to a specific number of spots per week. “If you can average 10 spots per week, you will certainly be heard. Because we only air three-minute breaks, three times an hour, an advertiser will stand out with decent frequency.”

Patti Millburn at KSSK in Honolulu suggests a higher number of spots, somewhere between 10 and 20. “With horizontal and vertical distribution, ROS, and live reads, they (advertisers) will get results.”

The good news here is that there’s more than one way to place your schedule to realize results. Laurie Stroud suggests starting the planning process with a few basic questions.

“What’s the marketing objective? What’s the ‘theme’ of the campaign, to determine if there’s something going on at the station that might be a good tie-in. What’s the timing? And what’s the budget?” Answer those questions and we can get started.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

“I got my Mojo Working” - Muddy Waters

Mojo:

1. The art or practice of casting magic spells; magic; voodoo.
2. An object, as an amulet or charm that is believed to carry a magic spell.

Everything in the world has Mojo. Even Direct Response Radio” has Mojo. It’s the magic that makes things work or not. When everything is firing on all cylinders, your control spot is generating a strong response. Schedules are clearing. You’re hitting your customers allowable goals you “got your Mojo working.“

But just as fast as you can say “McKinley Morganfield” a successful DR campaign can lose its Mojo. Commercials stop being effective. DR campaigns can stall. Clearance can become an issue. Successful schedules start to produce diminishing returns. One cannot throw up their hands and blame the reversal of fortune on a “loss of Mojo.”

One must take steps to recapture Mojo.

Recapturing DR Radio Mojo can be as simple as tweaking a commercial or as complicated as retooling everything in the campaign from creative concepts to media plans. Be proactive. Don’t wait for a shift in the wind. Trim your sail and try a new tack

For DR radio to be wildly successful, key elements must be in place…a good control spot and the right media purchased at the right price with strong clearance.

The challenge for DR Radio marketers is that we are at the mercy of supply and demand for the commercial inventory we need. If demand for commercials is high, access to rock bottom DR rates and remnant inventory is usually low, which has a profound effect on success DR campaigns.

The trick is to persevere and work through the challenges to recapture the magic of a strong campaign with good Mojo. But it takes YOU working – to get your Mojo working.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Baseball offers sponsors unique radio promotional and marketing ideas. One of my favorites is the “in-game” feature. In Philly, ‘The Daily News Home Run Payoff” designates a specific inning when contestants are randomly selected via post card. If a home team player hits a home run during that inning, the contestant wins a cash prize. This sponsorship takes a full season commitment and effectively weaves the client into the fabric of the broadcast and can transfer to other media if the resources allow. There are other ways get your product or service integrated in the game day broadcast.

Dasher Boards/Billboards: Dasher boards are boards that surround the interior perimeter of the ballpark. They are mini billboards, perfect for a logo and a short slogan, that become part of the broadcast. For instance:

• The play by play radio announcer says something like, “Ryan Howard hit that ball over the Tastykake sign in left field.”
• On television, the cameraman focuses on the home run location and the Tastykake logo gets shown on TV.

Newer Dasher boards rotate to showcase multiple sponsors which increase the revenue opportunity for the team. Personally I don’t think that a shared rotator is as good a value as a stationary board, but it is another option.

Ticket stubs: Great post-game promotion driver. Bring your ticket stub to a local restaurant and get a free meal. Or work with a movie theater chain to get one free admission. There are endless possibilities for discounts and admissions.

Rain delays: When rain visits the ballpark and delays the game, fans run for cover. During these broadcasts, TV usually reruns a classic game from the past and radio generally finds people to interview. Listeners and viewers usually check out for a while and check back in periodically. The good news for sponsors is that you get a lot of bonus weight during rain delays and free commercials are about the best you can get. Even though listenership and viewership diminishes during a rain delay, you only need one response from a bonus spot for it to be successful.

There is opportunity in every game if the media is purchased creatively and aggressively. And with 162 games left to play in the season, now’s the time step up to the plate.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Major League Baseball and live action sports in general are traditionally non-performers in the world of Direct Response. Spectators and listeners are usually too involved with the game to respond to the commercials immediately, and the in-game, pre- and post-game commercials are sold at a premium which makes it really difficult for DR commercials to perform at an acceptable level.

There are exceptions.

MLB plays 162 games a year, not counting Spring training and the playoffs. Baseball broadcasts usually don’t sell out early in the season and there might be DR opportunities for remnant buying and bonus weight. Most baseball games are carried by sports talk, talk and news-talk radio stations. Regularly scheduled programming gets pre-empted at game time. If inventory is available, spots scheduled to air in regular programming may be placed in the baseball broadcast. Be wary of the cost. If your sales rep tries to bump up your rates, the move may not work. If you’re getting them for remnant rates, it might work. If you’re getting them for free, better still.

As the season wears on, two things can happen. Everyone loves a winner. Your team starts winning and advertiser demand increases, which will lessen the opportunities for DR radio. Or your team starts stinking up the joint, creating more opportunities for DR radio. As interest dwindles, logic tells us that results will dwindle as well. But one never really knows until the property is tested. If we can buy it right or get bonus spots, it’s worth a shot. That shot could be a homerun or a pop-up. If an opportunity presents itself and the client has the extra money to test, step up to the plate and take a couple of big swings.

One way of building an association with a sports team is isolating a player or manager on the team and using them for personal endorsements. The endorsements can run in regular programming as well as in the game day broadcast. A high-profile athlete or coach can lend credibility to your brand and can help drive your allowable CPC, CPS and CPA. You won’t know unless you test.

Know these risks:

• The star athlete’s fee could be prohibitive.
• The player could have a bad year and their popularity could diminish.
• The athlete could sustain an injury and not play an inning.
• The manager could get fired.
• The player could be sent to the minor leagues.
• The player could be traded to a different team.

These are some of the chances you take in sports marketing.
If you’re ready to take a chance on Major League Baseball, “Play Ball!”

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

There isn’t a bigger direct response spectacle purer than a sporting event. Fans in the stands, at home watching TV and listening to the radio respond instantly to every play on the field, cheering good plays and booing the ones that stink up the joint. It’s instant direct response.

Perennial championship contenders constantly work to improve themselves off-season by adding and subtracting players and coaches and testing new plays in hopes of staying at the top of their game.

Just recently, the Philadelphia Eagles football team cut star running back Brian Westbrook after his 2009 season was marred by injuries and concussions that caused him to miss seven games. On paper, he ceased being productive and he was cut. Nothing personal. This was purely business.

The business measure of Brian Westbrook can be likened to a DR radio commercial that’s delivered great results in the past, but then suddenly experiences a drastic drop in numbers. In Westbrook’s case, knee and ankle surgery and concussions that made him miss seven games, compromising his performance and making him expendable.

And just like a DR radio commercial that had run its course, it became time for the team to test new players in hopes of finding a suitable replacement for Westbrook. Will it be last year’s fill-in, LeSean “Shifty” McCoy? This season he will get his chance to be the next successful running back on the Eagles football team.

But the touchdown points to be made here are that the Eagles had a plan. They saw their star running back on the downside of his career productivity and they readied a solid replacement in the wings. The same holds true on radio, where the most successful direct response marketers are ready to make that substitution once their star commercial falters.

If you don’t have at least one, rock solid radio commercial on the bench and ready to take the field, it’s time to put pen to paper and get into the recording studio. Because radio runs 24/7 with no time outs.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Peter Smyth is Chairman & CEO of Greater Media, a radio group with dominant stations in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Charlotte and New Jersey. His views on radio’s future mirror the initial spike upwards in radio revenue so far in 2010.

“Radio is and always has been the most intimate, personal and multi-tasking of the media,” says Smyth. “We have a medium of attention, impression and reach that, if invented today, would be the fulfillment of many technological dreams. Think of it: a medium that’s local, informal, personal and fun.”

So what’s been holding radio back?

“Our industry has always had an inferiority complex; many times it has been deserved. Our willingness to give away the store has, at times, undercut our value in the marketplace. Our preoccupation with the radio business as opposed to the business of radio has turned too many of us into operators, not broadcasters. We need investors, owners and managers who actively choose this business as a long term occupation and are not looking for an exit strategy.”

How has Arbitron’s new measurement system affected the way Greater Media programs its stations?

“Programmers face a difficult new challenge. As we learn about the listener’s behavior within the PPM system, we’re seeing a more demanding audience. Our collective experience level with PPM is focused to date on eliminating negatives from our programming. We need to move beyond subtraction and begin to focus on what positives we can add that will have a beneficial programming impact. We need to remember that this is still show business, and we need good performers who can deliver good value daily to their local communities.”

How will things change with in-dash wireless access?

“The promise of wireless Internet has become a reality in numerous new car models. How it evolves will determine how it will change customer behavior. Right now, the ability to use voice-command to retrieve e-mail is a first step. However, we still don’t exactly know the reliability of wireless Internet connections on a persistent basis for other applications such as streaming audio. We know it works under controlled conditions, but we need to gain some more real-world experience. If it does work robustly and reliably, then the dashboard will become the home to all of the Internet audio services now patched together with apps and iPhones and connector cords. Our challenge will be to make sure that local radio earns its place as a preset in this new universe, just as we earned the first or second pushbutton on the analog radio.”

With integrated solutions and creativity, Smyth notes, radio can sell marketing solutions that can change an advertiser’s business. The challenge is to avoid the trap of turning commercial inventory into a commodity.

“If we perceive ourselves as just making inventory available, then we will continue to scramble for a share of a decreasing pie. We must become proactive in order to stabilize and expand our revenues. In short, we have to sell new ideas to new business partners.”

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing

Howard Silver is a Senior Account Executive at CBS Radio in San Francisco and a 25+ year veteran of the radio industry. In the first of our series looking ahead to Radio 2010, Howard shares his view from the sales perspective.

RDR: 2009 was a challenging year for radio sales. What do you think will be different
in 2010?
HS: I see radio revenue growing in 2010. A large part of that is tied to the way we treat our current clients as partners and seek out new clients in the best position to benefit from radio.

RDR: Aside from the economy, why do you think radio found itself in such a rut?
HS: Listeners complain there’s not enough programming variety and too many commercials. Advertisers don’t appreciate radio’s wide reach. And most agencies value visually-oriented media more than audio. Buyers tend to commoditize and “buy it by the pound” rather than delving deeper to appreciate the advantages that individual formats can provide.

RDR: How can radio get past these issues and create new sales opportunities?
HS: By targeting advertisers in the best position to benefit from radio and treating clients as “partners.” Radio companies need to do a better job of positioning themselves as “content providers” offering marketing solutions on the tech platforms in the position to be the most widely used.

RDR: Let’s talk a little about that new technology. What do you see as the future of
satellite?
HS: Internet Radio and in-car WiFi will limit its success. Their content delivered through WiFi will make them a player here. As the price of in-car WiFi becomes more affordable, its use will become more widespread and eventually reduce terrestrial listening.

RDR: Does HD Radio still factor into the mix?
HS: HD has been slow to be accepted. I think the future of HD is to incorporate its content in WiFi and mobile phone delivery platforms. Radio needs a greater variety of music genres and HD can play a significant role here. HD content provided by broadcasters should appeal to a large audience.

RDR: Finally, how has the growth of direct response radio changed the playing field?
HS: Quite positively. I am fortunate to represent radio and online products that have proven to be effective. And I enjoy the immediate feedback our campaigns get and am always looking for way to improve the results. I’m looking forward to a good year.

Vince Raimondo, Vice President of Marketing