Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on a side project in my day job for my Sales Manager – one that is basically: “Educating Clients”. We are trying to find a way that will not only capture their information, educate them, and get them ready to buy advertising – and it’s a hard task!
First, some background: We’ve been doing this for years (at least the last 6) in one way at our radio station – with a blog that is specifically for our on-air clients – see that HERE if you want to. Posts go up there every Tuesday morning as this was the time that we saw more client activity on our site.
In the Blog For Clients I cover everything from advertising basics to mental health. Marketing their business not only in radio but also newspaper, tv and online – and also look at specific sectors and problems that clients email me about. We’ve also had videos. Silly posts. Competitions for clients, and more!
I work usually about 3-4 months in advance with the posts, and if something crops up – I drop a post and then take that issue head on and devote as much space as I need to answering the question, or giving details about the topic – such as survey results or when something major happens.
Sometimes while researching an article I find information that is GOLD and it helps me or other people out – other times I just come up with the answer to the next question and move on.
But about a month ago I decided that I was going to get a little bit ahead with my post scheduling – and have managed to complete 6 months of posts – so now I don’t have anything more to do with that until the end of the year, unless something else pops up.
This left me with time to look at other ways that other stations educate their clients and what I found was well… a little disappointing – especially given what I was being asked to do – I need some inspiration.
WHY?
I found that there are a plethora of single “Why Advertise With Us” pages on most radio station websites – and the thing is – they ALL look like and sound like they were written by the same person years ago, no matter which station or which country these stations are at. Sometimes the wording is EXACTLY THE SAME too! It’s almost like we all had the one press release about radio advertising and copied and pasted it to every single radio station – no matter the format!
Occasionally there will be a short promo video about the station – which look great and show the general wackiness of the station or personalities – but offers no actual reason as to why a prospective client should advertise with them.
Stats and data also take up a large part of station sites – with “XX% of people listening to our breakfast show” – style stats – which is great but if I was a client – I would say… ‘so what?’
Very few have rate cards – a couple have media information kits which are great for other media outlets, but have nothing for actual clients and businesses.
I think you see my point.
If I was a client, looking at YOUR station “Advertise With Us” page – what would I see?
Would it convince me to advertise with you?
Or go with a competitor?
Should you use your copywriting powers to try to update, convince and show how and why advertising with your station works? YES!
Let me know below what you are doing now – include links if you want – and then I will check on those same pages in a couple of months time and see how much they have been updated.
Cheers, until next time.
