Radio Marketing: A Lesson From Apple

Have you seen the latest iPhone ads?

It's remarkable that Apple still spends so much money to market something that's already a proven hit. They've done the same thing with the iPod. They support their products with continuous, expensive, creative and effective marketing campaigns.

In radio, we tend to market only when we're under direct attack, and to stop marketing once we feel we've weathered the storm. We do the very thing we counsel our own advertisers NOT to do. We try to buy listeners on the cheap. Cheap spots. Cheap buy. Interrupted campaigns as trends or revenue change.

Apple is using testimonials to sell the unique features an iPhone offers which their customers love. So simple. So effective.

Nothing beats word-of-mouth when it comes to effective marketing: Nielsen Study.

You don't get people to evangelize about what makes your product special and unique unless your product is special and unique.

Does your station do anything that would cause a listener to want to talk about it in front of a TV camera or microphone?

C'mon now, be honest with yourself, even if you can't be with your superiors. The emperors of most large radio groups have no clothes, so you're not alone.

You should be running listener testimonials every hour.

You should hear the passion listeners feel for your product in each one.

At least 50% of them should deal with how your station makes the listener FEEL when he or she uses you.

And none of them can be scripted.

If you're having trouble coming up with your unique features, you need product changes, not liner changes.

If you're having trouble getting passion and emotion in your listener testimonials, that's a product issue, not a positioning issue.

Stop wasting time. Call me. I can help, and I can refer you to other people who can help.

If you don't believe me, just watch those iPhone ads again.

There's a reason Steve Jobs will go down in history as the greatest marketing genius of our time.