> >
> You're right revenue would drop significantly at most
> stations. Right now it is being sold as a commodity...cost
> per point...same as a bushel really.
Some mearkets and the principal stations therein are mostly transactional markets where advertising on specific stations is part of a campaign that is measured on cost of audience delivery and the relative efficiency of not just indivisual stations but the different media.
>
> The real reason the revenue would drop at most stations is;
> lack of sales effort. Most AE's go after the low hanging
> fruit...they have no idea how to sell.
I find that at no time in the years that I ave been in radio has more effort been put on selling skills. Much of the training is about looking at client needs and showing how a specific buy, once past the hurdle of rate efficiency, delivers prospects to the customer.
> In a world where
> everyone is basically tied for third place...look in most
> markets; there is a statistical tie in 25-54 between #3 and
> #12. May as well not have quantitative numbers.
I see little evidence of this, since there are really not all that many buys that are as broad as 25-54. Most are for more specific objectives, like Men 25-44, etc. In each of these, it is easy to pick the significan deliverers. And in thise cases of tighter demos, pricing is based on the efficiency of delivery as advertisers do not pay for spillage they do not want.
The largest markets do see a number of stations clustered in a range of a few points, but in such markets the advertisers generally buy more than one station deep as well as buying multiple media.
> It is no
> longer about how many, it is a question of who is listening.
This is only a criteria if the advertiser, for example, targets Hispanics. A buy for rice will not be interested in much else besides Hispanic and, in many markets, Black, as the consumption of rice is strongest there (America's biggest selling rice, Mahatma, targets only those two groups).
This is why stations have tools that go beyond Arbitron such as scarborough, Map Maker, R.L. Polk, etc., to determine specific characteristics of a station audience or consumer patterns that show the value of an audience group vs. purchases in a specific product area.
> THat relates back to sales effort, and finding a decision
> maker who can say yes, and presenting a solution to a
> marketing objective.
There are markets where the decision maker is in the media department of an ad agency. I have worked in a market, in the top 15, where non-agency prospecting and sales was so unproductive as to not warrant the waste of money on a direct sales staff.
> Too many radio stations are ill
> equipped to handle this. Many major markets could learn a
> thing or two from their very small market brethren.
Certainly there are areas where different markets can teach lessons to other kinds of markets. But the fact remains that being able to apply a metric to a buy is critical in the larger markets.
>
> Answer me this; why does a pool salesman show a prospective
> customer a picture of a finished pool they have installed
> vs. radio rep shows ranker?
This is an old stereotype. It goes with the old joke of, "what is the difference between a radio salesman and a used car salesman?" Answer: the used car salesman knows when he is lying.
That may have been true when such techniques worked. Today, it takes more than a ranker to sell. It takes qualitative, service, value added discussions, promotions, copy, etc. (not necessarily all at once, though)
> We have forgotten what we are
> here to do; sell someone's product or service. We
> concentrate too much of our time futhering the
> commoditization of the industry. Radio should be showing a
> picture of a happy customer who sold some stuff because he
> advertised on radio.
In a small market, the old addage abut hte best rating being the cash register rings true today. But, how does Coke determine which of 1000 stations they buy is selling soft drinks, especially when Coke is also in print,TV, Cable and new media? Such a client needs to buy based on efficient delivery... and make thienr job the preparation of the best creative that will capitalize on the exposure they get.
> Showing rankers is akin to the pool
> salesman showing a picture of the backhoe they use to dig
> the hole.
Not really. showing a ranker is the eqluivalent of showing that yor price is competitive. Nobody installs 16 pools from 16 suppliers, so the pool analogy is inapropriate. In fact, a pool is a lifestyle purchase with no return on investment. Radio is an investment for a client, just a product design is an investment. It is part of getting goods or service to the consumer.
> Prospect says "why you showing me that, I assumed
> you had something to dig a hole." "I assumed you had an
> audience". Nuff said.
Again, when there is no way of proving audience size, advertisers quickly realize there is no way of putting anything but a minimum value on radio advertising, pitting station against station to sell the cheapest. There is no way to hold or grwo rates, as there is no underlying value that can be perceived except in small markets where an advertiser makes one radio buy at a time. Anywhere else, we like to know what we are paying for and whether it is the best possible deal.