Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

RAB says radio revenue was down 1% in 2014 – and they are the cockeyed optimists of the radio industry.

Other financial services – some of whom predicted large positive showings for radio revenue – reported losses in the 3-6% range.

One thing is for sure – pick your poison, radio revenue was down.

So what to do about it?

Not cutting rates, selling cheap short ads, failing to employ a digital strategy, firing salespeople or dumbing down the on-air product. That’s what the consolidators are doing and look where it’s gotten them.

Meanwhile, digital is supposed to be the future, but the average radio station does less than $200,000 a year in digital keeping in mind that the station gets to make up what it considers digital revenue and what is not.

So who knows what these stations are really doing in digital.

But there are ways to guarantee a positive finish for 2015 up as much as 4% in radio revenue.

• Focus on increasing the spend of your ten biggest advertisers by increasing the effectiveness of their ads. The increase in effectiveness can be 30% for advertisers if you test copy, employ the use of two or more voices on commercials and other strategies we will discuss at my Philly conference coming up in a little more than a week. Let’s talk about the stations that are actually doing it.
• Target the biggest local TV advertiser and then sit down and develop a plan to raid some of that buy. It really can’t and shouldn’t be done by just selling radio ads. This technique requires approaching the big local TV advertiser with a plan only after you get them to define what a successful campaign would be.
• Then, add this new digital revenue stream with guaranteed big income. This should be video. I will show you some short-form video examples that are bringing in $3 million and more for amateurs – at least they are amateurs compared to us.  Just following this footprint and having a modest success nets an additional income stream toward your plus 4% finish for 2015.
• Video may seem like kid stuff, but you’ll see how teenagers are earning millions by attracting large YouTube audiences and then going to advertisers like Macys and Target to name just two to sign product placement deals. Local advertisers will also love this.
• Great sellers are usually not great detailers, so remove “make work” from the lives of account execs, raise their commissions if they go above and beyond what they sold last year.  It’s worth it and you get to keep the other 85%. Also, ask me about how to inspire sellers in a way you’ve never seen before.  It works.  Just remind me about the power of asking questions.

This one-day seminar is not available on tape or stream.

Just in person March 18^th at the Hub Conference Center in Philly 1½ weeks from today.

Examine the 13 modules that make up the curriculum here.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Here’s the Agenda:

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

REGISTRATION / COMPLMENTARY BREAKFAST

8:00 am         Registration / Complimentary Breakfast

9:00 am         Solutions to Commercial Clutter
                      How Much Radio / How Much Digital?
                      Listen Longer Strategies
                      Eliminating Radio’s 3 Biggest Objections

10:30 am       BREAK

10:45 am      Ways To Compete with Online Content
                      What Millennials Want From Radio
                      8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

12 Noon        COMPLIMENTARY LUNCH

1:00 pm        How To Attract Millions To Your Website (Laurie Cantillo interview)

2:15 pm         BREAK

2:30 pm         Selling Against Competitors Who Drop Rates
                      Innovative Sources of New Radio Revenue
                      Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word
                      Why You Should Pass On Podcasting

3:30 pm        Audience Q & A

4:00 pm        CONFERENCE CONCLUDES

Here are program details:

1. Attracting More Website Visits. WTOP in DC does 2 million every month and 31.8 million page views. So we’re bringing PD Laurie Cantillo in to sit with us and discuss. We can question here together.
2. Solutions to Commercial Clutter. Look, running 8-minutes of unlistenable commercials every hour is a suicide wish.  I know, they pay the bills.  I’m going to present you with 11 ways to make this problem get better.
3. How Much Radio, How Much Digital. I can tell you right now I am going to show you the digital initiatives that have no payoff. But you’ll be impressed by the few that do and you’re going to want to jump on them. One costs under $1,000 and is pretty impressive.
4. Listen Longer Strategies. Radio TSL has been dropping every year since the early 1990s. This calls for disrupting the way we build our hot clocks. I’m going to show you how to throw that hourly clock out and replace it with something better.
5. Eliminating 2015’s 3 Biggest Listener Objections. Outdated morning shows, too many commercials and repetitious music. Do even one thing on these three listener objections and you’re ahead of the market.
6. Effective Ways To Compete With On-Demand Content. I am going to play dirty with Millennials developing content they cannot possibly resist about employment, college loans, themselves. We can do this – as you will see.
7. What Millennials Want From Radio. This list has seven things on it and I can tell you I live by this list every day whether I am talking to Millennials or not.
8. Selling Against Programmatic Buying. This is essentially bidding down rates so its time to have an action plan to combat it. How to walk from a deal that media buyers ruined by bidding down the rate on a competitor. The secret to getting longer term contracts. A few very smart stations are way ahead of the industry on this.
9. Start Your Own Short-Form Video Business. Digital shouldn’t be an add-on to what you do on the air.  Do the best on-air radio you can possibly do and a separate stream of revenue from the hottest digital project ever. Let me play some short-form videos for you that are being done by young people who are making more money than most stations do from all their digital initiatives.
10. Beyond Clicks – Listener Engagement. Social media is changing rapidly from mass audience to small groups of participants. Radio must rethink using social media to promote what’s on the air.   It’s a waste. Let’s talk about what your listeners who “like” you really want.  Which social media site is ascending at the pace of YouTube?
11. Telling Stories – the New Spoken Word Radio. You don’t have to run a talk station to cash in on storytelling.  And it is highly saleable.
12. Why You Should Take a Pass On Podcasting. Podcasting is another form of talk radio. It may appeal to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers but it sure hasn’t made any real money. Ask me about storytelling and how it could find its way onto your station – even a music station. Especially, a music station.
13. 8 Millennial Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make. There are 95 million Millennials out there – the largest generation ever, even larger than the Baby Boom generation. Here are the 7 things Millennials want most from radio.

Reserve a seat.

Inquire about group rates here.

Look through the online program brochure here.