Re-Focusing Your Investment

Positioning And Marketing Are Two Of The Keys

One of the New Year's resolutions you should have made for 2008 is to re-focus your investment in yourself as well as your job. Whether you work on the radio side or the label side, it's important to figure out how to set aside some time to ensure that you have career options. That way, when it's time to re-invent yourself, your cupboard won't be bare.

One of the biggest challenges that lies ahead for those of us in radio will be investing in the continuing education process. We will need to know more, so we can do more ... so that we can offer more. All this in preparation for the day when the company we work for decides to "go in a different direction," we will have a shot at continuing on or moving on with confidence. That means we have to become an indispensable specialist -- and then get noticed in this overcrowded industry, where there are going to be even fewer jobs than last year.

Are you building your brand or just wasting your time? We don't mean to scare you ... or maybe we do, if scaring you results in your investing early, or if it means saving even a few of you from the unemployment line.

There's a reason why large companies are paring down their staffs. Actually, there are several reasons. For one thing, those at the top have told our bosses to reduce their staffs, to cut their costs. Most of those at the top are "bean counters" -- not broadcasters or music specialists.

Another reason for change and re-focus is that we're no longer just competing with other terrestrial radio stations, satellite radio and the Internet. We're competing with all these forces and iPods. Recent studies and early Arbitron PPM results have shown that even the most ardent radio listeners, including the "music freaks," are listening less now. How are we going to get them back or have a chance to capture and keep what's left of the available audience? We're going to have to re-focus and concentrate more in marketing and positioning.

Positioning & Marketing

First let's look at positioning. Some of you may remember when marketing specialists Ries and Trout wrote the landmark book on marketing back in the '80s. The publication, called "Positioning," sparked a revolution in advertising that really changed the way people looked at marketing. The basic precept of positioning is not what you can do with a product or service, but rather what you do to the mind of the listener. They felt it vitally important to "position" the product in the mind of the listener. After all, with consumers having more and more choices today, this so-called "battle for your mind" becomes even more important. What's the most effective way to be seen and heard on the ever-crowded airways?

Ries and Trout went on to write several more books on positioning. We found "The 22 Inimitable Laws of Marketing" to be especially interesting and useful. These so-called laws are really just common sense suggestions for marketing. Urban programmers would do well to review the concepts and strategies laid out by Ries and Trout. One of the basic laws they talk about -- and one which is broken on a regular basis by Urban stations -- is advertising your station before the product is right.

Fix It First, Then Market It

As a programming consultant, I run into situations regularly where stations lay out a significant marketing campaign with billboards, bus sides, even TV before they get their product right. Then, after they have spent several thousands dollars, they wonder why their cume went down. Naturally, they blame the program director, who in many cases didn't even participate in the marketing decision in the first place. What programmer in his or her right mind would turn down an opportunity to have the station advertised? Yet I continue to see this happening over and over. I have found many stations' music unfocused and a local morning show that created little or no impact.

To make matters worse, when I suggested that the station shouldn't market itself until the product was right, their response was that they had finally gotten their advertising budget and they weren't going to let this marketing opportunity slip away from them. Far too often the Urban stations that do advertise, spend thousands on marketing a less-than-stellar product. The key here is similar to the old restaurant adage of not advertising the restaurant until the food is good. Bring in a new chef (programmer), give him or her a chance to get the menu and other cooks (air personalities) in order ... and then market the product. As difficult as this may be to believe, you can actually do more harm than good by marketing your station when the product isn't right. If your ads say your station is new, blazing and better, and people listen and find out it's really the same old thing, you've shot yourself in the foot.

Once you're convinced the music is focused, the morning show is on target and the rest of your product is ready, the next question becomes: What's the best way to market your station?

The traditional methods of marketing present a wide range of choices. Television advertising, although it can be most effective in building new cume, has become very expensive. If you don't have the right creative or enough of a schedule to penetrate, you're throwing your money away. So, if not television, what should we use?

Well-placed billboards are still a great way to stabilize and reinforce your station's image in the minds of the audience, but similar to television, you need a great message first, then the right amount of boards in key locations.

Lately, I've become convinced that marketing Urban stations via the Internet can work wonders -- especially if your station targets key demographics such as 18-34 or 25-49. The amount of time your listeners and potential listeners spend online is staggering. and in the year ahead online usage will far surpass TV and billboard viewing.

Marketing your station through creative interaction with your listeners online has become a key method to form and keep that "emotional connection" strong with your P-1s. Also, a strong web presence and regular e-mails to your loyal listener base is a very effective way of marketing your station.

Future Focus

As much of the old gives way to the new in 2008, we have to look at what still works or appears to work. The investment in re-focusing must continue. In some cases it's no longer a battle for one's mind; it's become a battle for one's attention. This year, begin the investment by trying to find a performance venue, event, remote or other station function that you can tie into - one that may be suitable for sponsorship.

In the year 2008 and beyond, many traditional methods of marketing radio and music are going to be quickly replaced by creative online marketing, event sponsorship and "mind-grabbing" gimmicks. There are other forms of non-traditional marketing that you can do that are inexpensive and can be very effective. Invest some time in them.

No matter what form of marketing and positioning you choose, make sure your product is right before you advertise it. Always strive to image your station with an indelible brand in the listener's mind.

Finally, we can't seriously speak about protecting or re-focusing our investment until we first quit obsessing on the superficial and tactical. We must not lose sight of what branding and positioning really are. They are, or should be, building a story for our place on the dial - a story with a theme and point of view. A brand is a packet of meaning ... a collection of stories. A true position or slogan is the emotion that lives hidden behind the slogan. In the mind of the listener, it's the reason the slogan and our station matter.

Word.