What is your growth strategy? I believe in this basic truth… we are either shrinking or growing. Whether this is in your personal life, your physical fitness, or your business, there is always a cycle of growth that should be pursued. It seems like radio is focused on protecting audience and revenue over growth, and that is bad for our industry.
I believe in addition. It is important, and for news/talk radio, there are many opportunities. This is a time for conquest, not for defeat. The hunger for compelling content has never been higher than it is now. Spoken-word podcasts are growing in a huge way, and we as an industry have been behind the eight ball. We repurpose our on-air content and call it a podcast.
What happens on your show — especially in morning drive, where everything is moving so fast — may not be completely usable. For the morning shows on the stations that I lead, my team is only putting up the most compelling content. These are shorter segments, and we have been seeing real growth.
The theory is this… most listeners want to catch that interview that they either missed or only caught a small portion of. Make it easy to find. Perhaps you had a segment that was funny or outrageous — let that stand on its own. Make those memorable segments easy to find, share, and consume.
Growth is built on more than a billboard. While a marketing budget is an awesome ally to growth, great content is the key. If your station or show is creating memorable moments, you will see growth. If your station or show delivers predictable moments that feed the P1s alone, you are in trouble.
One of the reasons that I enthusiastically encourage managers to develop a target listener is that it is a growth game plan. You cannot serve every demographic. It is a mission in failure. You cannot target the 65-plus crowd because it is a losing game. Every obituary is one less listener. There has to be more than just a “conservative person.”
Attend a Republican event. There are a handful of people. They are lovely people who likely love your station — but they are not your future. In the last decade, I had a corporate leader who really thought that joining the Lions Club was an opportunity to grow the platform in the market. After looking it up, the closest Lions Club was 30 miles away and outside the station’s metro area.
I asked the corporate leader if he was a member of a civic club. He wasn’t, but he knew that it was a big deal. If you are in the host space, you have likely been asked to speak to a Kiwanis or other civic group. The crowd is typically in their 70s and has been meeting regularly for the past 40 years. Civic groups have seen declining numbers for decades. Why? It is because they have not invited anyone new to the party.
This is not on purpose. If you ask them about declining numbers, they often will say that they would love new members. Here is why they don’t get them: the 40-year-old business owner doesn’t want to join a group with a majority of members the age of their parents. Hey, news/talk — if your focus is on pleasing the people who have been there since the ’90s, you will always be shrinking.
Ok, let’s talk about marketing. We are in the advertising industry. Radio develops imaginative and focused marketing campaigns for local clients. These businesses are growing. Why are radio station marketing campaigns so lame and ineffective?
To be fair, I was involved with a TV campaign that was amazing and raised the station’s cume measurably. I was also part of the worst TV ad in the history of radio. The worst TV ad in history had zero input from me. The market manager let the morning host design his own ad. It was horrifically bad.
I had an argument with the market manager over the ad. I told him that burning money in the street would be a better plan. The buy for the horrific ad was even worse. It was a six-week campaign that added zero cume. Your company may have a workshop for local businesspeople on how to promote their brands. Program directors and hosts — have you ever attended one of these to build a campaign on your station using the principles that work so well for advertisers?
We should always be openly focused on growing our base. I understand that anyone can turn on the radio at any time. I also know that if new or casual listeners do not have their expectations met, they are gone.
Our secret sauce is that we should be discussing Topic A. Following PPM data, the average listening occasion is approximately 13 minutes. If you are in a diary market, that is longer — but PPM is probably the most accurate data in this instance.
Why are people turning on your station? Often, it is just to hear what is happening in your community, state, nation, and world. If you are not discussing the big story, you are dead. Good luck getting that listener back. The Monday following the bombing of Iran, if the talk show host is discussing tax policy… they are not getting it.
Who are we? Why are we here? What is the strategy to grow your brand?
I am ending this article like an Elmore Leonard novel.
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Peter Thiele is a weekly news/talk radio columnist for Barrett Media, and an experienced news/talk radio programmer. He currently serves as News/Talk Format Captain for Zimmer Communications. Prior to joining Zimmer, Peter held programming positions in New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, Little Rock, Greenville, Hunstville, and Joplin. Peter has also worked as a host, account executive and producer in Minneapolis, and San Antonio. He can be found on Twitter at @PeterThiele.
