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Listeners are not hanging on your every word. Listeners have unprecedented choice and they use that freely. In fact, even your most loyal fans will turn you off or turn away in a heartbeat the minute you fail to be interesting, funny, or relevant to their needs. It is your obligation to understand HOW your audience listens to you and take advantage of that.
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PPM loves compelling content. Whether it is great music or engaging talk. Don’t risk losing your audience when opening the microphone. Relevance and engagement are th4e name of the game.
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Monday is the new Thursday. PPM says people begin their week by listening more. Your mission is to get them on Monday and give them reasons to keep coming back. “Thursday morning at 7:20” is “diarythink.”
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Find out what really works and do it with greater frequency. Ask your PD or check your audience research. Find out what doesn’t work and stop doing it entirely.
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You have twice as many competitors for you listeners’ time as the diary led you to believe. On the other side of the same coin, you get sampling from many more other stations than we previously thought.
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It’s almost impossible to make the average listener spend any more time per occasion. Teasing a list of artist ‘coming up,’ might be ineffective. Create events and ride the wave when they gain traction to increase the number of times your most loyal listeners tune to you.
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Think forward, always forward. It doesn’t matter what you just did – promote like Fox News or ESPN, and make the teaser about the next segment or tomorrow morning at the same time. And give it a clear cut “hook.” Saying “more great music ahead” doesn’t cut it. Work hard to craft the tease, but always pay it off: it’s “tease ‘em and please ‘em.”
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Make sure all your content is timely. In a world where the latest gossip is delivered to cell phones instantaneously the bar is now very high.
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Put an audible alarm on your PPM encoder. Just as you’d use a “silence sensor” to alert somebody that you’re off the air, have the alarm email and/or call key people. The transmitter may be on the air but if the encoder isn’t working, you are functionally off the air. The same holds true for your stream and HD side channels too. Expect some extra meters to read during your shift.
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There is no such thing as exclusive cume. Fortunately, your cume is much larger than you ever thought it was, based on recall measurement.
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There’s no “morning-after” effect. Sure, they loved you last night for the ballgame or the special concert, but they’re probably going to be with someone else this morning. You’ve got to keep winning them back with reasons to make new appointments to listen.
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For morning shows, make it a point to reduce even the good things by 30 percent. If it’s funny in 90 seconds, it’s hysterical in 30! Efficiency matters in this ‘rubber meets the road’ world.
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The art of the musical segue will be re-born in PPM. Keep ‘em listening, and don’t give ‘em reasons to tune out.
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It’s incumbent upon talent to understand how PPM works. It’s important to them tailor content to take advantage of those drivers. How well you do that defines how successful you will be.
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Respect your listeners! Your listeners have more choices than ever … you need them more than they need you.
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There will be a greater premium placed on good preparation then ever before. He or she with the best homework and execution wins.
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What are my listeners talking about/thinking about today already is a place to start for “relevant” content. Start with the listener sticky content first, if you don’t there may be no “second.”
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Don’t take it personally when they do tune out. Usually the No. 1 reason they left your station is that they stopped listening to the radio altogether – because they got out of the car or had to leave the office, etc. Your job is to be the professional, so don’t get emotionally involved when there’s tuneout. Audience flow has a lot more to do with that THEY are doing at the time, than anything YOU are doing.
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Strive for clarity in presentation (not just content targeting). How you say it is as important as what you say. Eliminate multiple personalities talking over each other.
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No matter what anyone says, there are no PPM experts yet...
