Take the commercial apart and see how it works

One of the ways to improve your skills in any field of expression whether it’s visual art, poetry, songwriting, filmmaking or writing is to analyze the work of the masters in each medium and discover the principles that make the piece successful. Will it work for radio commercials? In my experience, yes. Whether you use it as a way to break writers’ block, or as a continuing method to improve your writing this exercise may be useful.

Where is the camera in your radio commercial?

Since your audience views radio in their mind's eye, ask yourself, "Where is the camera? What will be the audience's point-of-view?" In a conversation between two people in a car, is the camera to their left or right? On the dashboard facing them? Between them, looking over their shoulders? In the back seat, listening from the passengers’ perspectives? Put your microphone where the camera would be, or mix the elements so that the listener is in that place.

What B2B marketers can teach the rest of us

I recently came back from three inspiring days in Chicago, attending the BMA (Business Marketing Association) annual conference. There were

Sales mindset for the future

Have you heard about the revolution that is sweeping the business world? This one doesn't have anything to do with stock options, profit margins, quarterly revenues, or meeting earnings. This one is a community of people that have decided the way of sales in the future has a new mindset.

Humanize your commercial client

People buy from people, not from institutions. Advertisers often forget this, and are more concerned about their perfect "image" than about relating to their audience as fellow human beings.

10 reasons to fall in love with your CRM tool

Time and time again I hear about sales people refusing to use their Customer Relations Management software for one reason or another. The most common reasons for resistance are old habits, CRM inadequacies and flat out insubordination. I am here to tell you that no matter the CRM tool you choose, you will find “things” you do not like. Think that switching CRM’s will help? Most of the time, not. So, what if I told you that sales experts tell us that sales people that use a CRM daily show improved performance by as much as 25%? Would you get busy now?
Bob McCurdy

Grab the Grail

The Radio transition to digital is progressing a lot slower than original predictions a decade ago—HD’s promise has yet to come close

Commercials need conflict

Life is full of conflict (No it's not!), yet most radio commercials have none. The characters in commercials usually agree with each other (Says who?)
Bob McCurdy

Building your sales story

Whenever an important piece of Radio research appears in the trades, often our initial inclination is to get the results in front of our accounts as quickly as possible. But while the data itself is important what could equally important and impactful can be the quotes by industry leaders that accompany the article.

The case for media procurement

The annual ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference just wrapped up. There were 600+ attendees and many of those were client-side marketing procurement

Where is the camera in your radio commercial?

Since your audience views radio in their mind's eye, ask yourself, "Where is the camera? What will be the audience's point-of-view?" In a conversation between two people in a car, is the camera to their left or right? On the dashboard facing them? Between them, looking over their shoulders? In the back seat, listening from the passengers’ perspectives? Put your microphone where the camera would be, or mix the elements so that the listener is in that place.

Driving radio ad revenue through attribution on mobile

One-way radio broadcast advertising has been an effective medium for reaching large numbers of consumers since the 1920’s. However
Michael Rudd

Growing sales weary and overcoming it

Can you really blame people? Everyone seems to be getting a little sales weary. From the second we get up in the morning until the moment our heads hit the pillow and our lids close on our eyes we are getting pitched, asked, negotiated, told, closed, cold called, prospected, and more! You and I are both in sales or sales management and I protect myself all of time from it and I believe it is your right to protect yourself as well. Some may think that if you are in the sales industry you should embrace it and let every pitch fall on you. But while I try to learn and observe from the pitches if I do get them I believe we should only need to listen to those with something to offer that will improve a component of our lives. The question then is how can we get around this in our careers?

Humanize your commercial client

People buy from people, not from institutions. Advertisers often forget this, and are more concerned about their perfect "image" than about relating to their audience as fellow human beings. It's not a perfect world, and listeners recognize this, so a commercial that tries to portray the advertiser as perfect, doesn't ring true. Let the audience in on your client’s little faults, the chinks in the armor. For example,

What you need to know about apples

Yes, I did mean apples, not Apple. More on that in a minute...When you stop to think about what has caused many advertisers to shift a growing percentage of their media budgets to more targetable media, such as search marketing (Google mainly), social media (Facebook mainly), online display, video, retargeting and the rest, you can understand the reason. Who, after all, wouldn’t want to target their media to those who express (sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly) their interest in a subject related to what the advertiser wants to sell?