Holland Cooke Media

Are you ready?

We -- inside-the-box -- live and breathe radio. Listeners have their hands full just living and breathing. Their day is time-crunched and financially-challenging, and we want to be its soundtrack. But listening is free, unlike umpteen other purchase decisions they agonize. So what's high-stakes to us is low-stakes to them.

We only matter if we matter, and we've never had so much audio competition.

As the school year begins, the listeners local retailers want as customers transition back to "normal" routines. Their tempo changes, and builds to a holiday season climax. Do they know who you are and how you can help?
Off-air promotion (remember that?) merely says give-us-a-try. When they do, does what they hear deliver? And even with scant (or no) off-air promotion, much of what you can do to become more habit-forming costs nothing. As consultants do, I'm talking about "the fundamentals," the blocking-and-tackling stuff.

For starters...

Who are you?

Are call letters or station nickname delivered frequently? PPM Myth: call letters matter less. Baloney. Awareness drives use.
Ditto your dial position(s) and how to listen via smartphone, smart speaker, and streams. Name-and-address. As your listeners cume 3 stations this week, help 'em remember yours more than the other 2.
And are you selling -- or merely reciting -- call letters, dial position, and slogans? This is often an issue with veteran talent, creatures of habit.

Where are they?
Radio can be self-referencing to habitual listeners, the lion's share of your AQH. Example: When I programmed WTOP/Washington, I knew I was on-time if I was at the corner of 25th and K when The Osgood File came on. If it had already been on, I was late. If it hadn't aired yet, I was a little ahead of the game. So consistently execute on time.

"Who cares?"
Or as my WTOP successor Jim Farley asked: "W.G.A.S.?" (a sign in the newsroom there, "Who Gives A Shit?")

Are topics relatable and inviting? Enable listeners with helpful information, and they'll keep coming back.
Do you say "you" and "your" a lot? It's a litmus test for relevance.
Do you keep setting the stage as audience tunes in? Someone JUST got in the car.
Are you teasing the next quarter hour? And what you'll offer same-time-tomorrow?
Even with apps in the dashboard, solid traffic reports are super-local and can be super-impactful.
Is your on-air imaging about the station? Or listeners' lives? "Because ONE traffic jam can jam-up your whole day..."

Without spending a dime on promotion, we can train your listeners to listen more often.
AM/FM broadcasters' silver bullet is local news and information. Simply employing station news people -- or even using a news vendor -- can distinguish you from listeners' many other audio choices...IF your on-air and digital news copy is relevant, helpful, and habit-forming. Learn more about my "4-Week Tune-In Tune-Up" -- and see the Week #1 on-boarding video, here.