There are many variables in direct response advertising. You have to have the right mix to make it work. Today I am focusing on the relationship you need with the people you are doing business with in the media.

We get great results with great copy. We get great results with a great schedule.

We also get great results when our representative at any given network or at a station takes his/her time to understand our business model.

We often spend a lot of time with our reps not negotiating, but explaining to them how we want to run the campaign and our expectations from them.

We share our clients’ goals with them so that they know what kind of results we expect from the campaign.

We tell them that we will share the weekly results with them (this is the reason why we are called the transparent agency) so that they will know that if they are delivering good results. If not, they should start running bonus in order to fix the results. Most of the time we even share the midweek results so they can have the opportunity to fix them within the same week if they have unsold inventory. (We know they do.)

We remind them that we all have the same goal. We all want to generate great results for our clients so they stay with us for a long time and maximize their investment in radio.

We invest more money on any given station or network if they generate good results. If we have the right rep, you, the client, wins. And we can all trust the media properties and include them on every media plan as long as it makes sense for the product.

Askin Emir is Vice President of Media at The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the RSS link above. Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com