Radio Ink Magazine September 7, 2020

The most creative, proactive sales rep I ever met was my dad. He didn’t sell media or insurance or shoes. He didn’t fly to locations across the country. He sold bread. To grocery chains and independent mom-and-pops. And he always went beyond “taking the order.” He knew the importance of hitting the right notes with every account, from product placement to building mutual and empathetic relationships with each and every contact he encountered. I remember weekends groaning and rolling eyes (out of sight of Dad, of course) as my siblings and I would walk into the dining room and see a table filled with markers, poster boards, and bullet points scratched out on a legal pad. It was usually a promotional idea Dad had dreamed up for a new or existing…

Many of you sell to agencies that drag you into the numbers — numbers about audience size, time spent listening, qualitative assessments, and cost per point. Numbers. Math. Analysis. Data. Like media buyers, Wall Street investors walk tiptoe on the ice above an ocean of data. Some of them will tell you they are ice skating on that data, but don’t let them fool you. Misinterpretation of the data is the ever-present danger facing investors and marketers. Every client on your account list is a marketer. Misinterpreted data creates a faulty premise. And you cannot build solid marketing on a faulty premise. Data is like dots on a page. One person connects the dots and sees an elephant. Another person connects the dots and sees a clown. The dots didn’t change. What changed was the…

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will tell you there are approximately 60 registered businesses for every 1,000 population within a city. Of these 60 registered businesses, we suggest that 50 have the potential to advertise on some level, and 30 of them are strong prospects with the ability to become better-than-average clients. So, in a city of 50,000 people, you have approximately 2,500 viable prospects, and 1,500 that can increase your average! Main Street is shrinking. The best places to prospect today are in the service and professional business categories. This was even before the battering of local retail during COVID-19. However, “type or category” is not the number one trait to look for when prospecting. During my time as a sales manager, nearly every six-figure account our sales team developed took…

Elections, like sales, are won by the best strategist — not necessarily the best candidate. So let’s borrow a page from a political strategist’s playbook. Political strategists design their campaigns from a carefully devised formula. Many years ago, I worked briefly as a reporter for a community newspaper owned by a former political party boss. He explained how, in a smoke-filled room, they determined that they needed a poor Italian boy from the wrong side of the tracks to win a U.S. Senate seat. And their candidate did win and served many years in that position. Fast-forward to 2020. For those of us still in radio, take heed. Yes, the secret sauce for winning advertisers is not that different than it is for winning elections. Let’s break it down into its component…

Columbia, South Carolina, is one of the fastest-growing areas in America. The capital of the Palmetto State has seen an influx of news population and growth in new home sales. Rob Pinion, owner of Sugar Creek Amish Furniture, says that and a number of other factors makes the “Soda City” a great location for his business. Soda City? No, no cola brands are made in Columbia, but a while back its U.S. Postal Service abbreviation was “Cola.” It’s a moniker the locals like — locals like Midlands Media Group. MMG has fully embraced the branding opportunity with projects like Cola Daily, a news/lifestyle website, Cola Daily Deals, a local business aggregation website with discounted deals; and Fizz — Soda City Music, an online radio station with an eclectic mix of music from…

With everyone dealing with and working through the ways COVID-19 has affected them in 2020, we haven’t heard a lot of chatter about the battle for that very valuable space on the dashboards of automobiles lately. It’s still a battle, with technology improving all the time, tech companies looking for ways to push radio around, and consumers wanting their entertainment easily and quickly. One person who’s been fighting the good fight for the radio industry when it comes to technology in the automobile is Xperi Senior Vice President of Broadcast Radio Joe D’Angelo. He's been working with the industry and the automotive world to keep radio competitive in the car. And he’s been working on things that will benefit radio that you might not even have known about. In our cover story…