results radio sioux falls

The 6 Words That Perfectly Explains My Radio Clients’ Success

/ Duane Christensen

This quote by Bobby Orr… gets its own blog post. This quote contains just as much glorious advice for all you Sioux Falls business owners and advertisers…as it does for budding hockey players. Ready? Here it is…

“Forget about style; worry about results. ”
― Bobby Orr

Can you hear the angelic choir from the heavens?

radio advertising sioux falls

Regarding your advertising, no matter if it’s online, TV, Radio, Billboards, etc., you need to get over what you “think” your advertising should sound or look like. All that matters…are the results.

And we have a pretty good history of that here at Results Radio Townsquare Media. Personally, I have wonderful, beautiful, successful clients who have been on the radio with me for over 10 years.

The people who benefit most from doing business with me on the Radio… are the ones who are finally ready to just DO IT RIGHT. They’ve been burned. They’re tired of throwing money at things that don’t work.

If this sounds like you…let’s sit down and discuss your situation.

We don’t worry about the “style” of your ad. We don’t worry if it sounds “professional” enough or not. All we worry about… is figuring out what will bring you RESULTS.

I think you can become just as well-known and popular in Sioux Falls as Bobby Orr is in the hockey world. Let’s talk about how to do that.

 

Duane Christensen

Results Radio Townsquare Media

605-940-7984

duane.christensen@results-radio.com

duanechristensen.townsquareinteractive.com

 

Radio Advertising’s Superpower: What Can It Do For You?

/ Duane Christensen / 1 Comment
radio advertising

Image courtesy of “vectorolie” / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Radio advertising’s superpower is long-term branding for a business. When a local Sioux Falls business wants to build a brand, be remembered, and reach a lot of people, there is nothing better than a good, consistent radio advertising campaign. Warning: You can’t release just any kind of radio ads out into the world…it has to be well-thought-out and strategic (which is our specialty). So, what can a consistent radio advertising plan do for you? Let’s get right to it. You like lists, right?

1) Awareness of your business. You become a choice to those who didn’t know about you.

2) Change perceptions about your business, service, or product…where perceptions need to be changed. Which will allow you to attract more customers and increase your sales. Duh, right?

3) Cause people to remember certain words or phrases when they need what you sell. And we anchor those words or phrases to your business name…so they contact YOU instead of a competitor.

4) Cause people to “FEEL” and “SEE” what it would be like if they were your customer. Get them to like you before they have ever bought from you.

5) Brand your business. When people think about, hear, or see your name, they KNOW WHAT YOU STAND FOR (or against)…and they feel good about that. Which immensely increases the chance YOU will be the business they choose to BUY from.

With all of the above 5 things cranking, you then get…

6) Consistent business growth. By consistently saying the right things to a whole bunch of people, you’ll keep attracting new faces. So, if you treat people right, and keep most of your current customers…your sales will continue to grow. You won’t have to wonder “how are we going to make some extra sales this month?” You won’t have to discount your services or slash prices of your products to get new business. You’ll be attracting the profitable people – not the wishy-washy ones who have to get everything on sale.

This stuff works. I have clients who’d love to tell you about it.

Let me know if you’d like to talk with me about marketing your business in the Sioux Falls area.

Radio advertising has received a bad rap by a lot of business owners. But only because they didn’t do it right. They didn’t understand radio’s superpower. And the advertising people they talked to in the past…didn’t understand how to unleash radio advertising’s superpower.

Duane Christensen

Results Radio Townsquare Media

Sioux Falls  SD

605-940-7984

duanechristensen.townsquareinteractive.com

Fancy and Expensive Doesn’t Equal Good Marketing

/ Duane Christensen / 1 Comment

Fancy and Expensive Marketing

Your $750 logo isn’t going to be “the answer” to your marketing woes. Your $10,000 website isn’t going to be your savior when it comes to capturing new customers. That $5000 TV production will grow old far sooner than you wish it would.

There are a lot of websites out there that cost a lot of money. Some are worth the money because there are a lot of complicated programming elements in them. Some large entities need that. But some of the overpriced sites I see are for local, small businesses where most of the cost came from graphic design costs. Graphics that aren’t necessary. Sure it’s great that your website looks nice, but there are tons of lower-cost options out there with design platforms and templates that look really good.

There are also expensive radio ads. It doesn’t mean they’re working. Just because you hear a funny radio ad doesn’t mean it’s actually selling anything for the business – or that it’s helping any branding efforts. Just because you hear a professional voicing the ads in a dramatic fashion, with big cinematic music and sound effects in the background…doesn’t mean it’s effective.

Fancy and expensive marketing does not equal good marketing…

Good Marketing

All your website needs to do is 1) be easy on the eyes, 2) make it easy for visitors to find the information they need, 3) be able to be found on search engines like Google, and 4) say things that give visitors confidence in the fact that you can solve their problems – so they won’t feel the need to “back out” and look for a different option. More time should be dedicated to what you say within your website, instead of more time (and cost) on making it look fancy – just like all of your other marketing and advertising. The things you say in your marketing make a bigger, profitable impact than the visuals. Yes, visuals can play a role…but they’re not the lead role.

Good marketing can come in many different forms. But it doesn’t mean that you have to use all different kinds of marketing and advertising. I’m saying don’t waste your marketing budget as a small business trying to be everywhere and reach everyone. You don’t have to spread your advertising around to 15 or 30 different outlets. When you do that…with a smaller budget…you’re “watering down” the number of ads being distributed to the public. And just like how we learned our alphabet, we need repetition.

There’s no marketing rule that says you can’t put the beefy portion of your budget into Radio. I have a lot of clients who do just that. And it’s working wonders for them. We’re saying things in their ads that radio listeners don’t expect to hear. Which means we’re keeping those listeners’ attention… and causing them to remember my radio clients when they have a particular problem that my radio clients can solve. With good radio ads, you can consistently and predictably grow. With a consistent radio plan month-in and month out, with a smart strategy intertwined into the ads, you won’t have to wonder when or where your next new customer will be calling or walking in.

You won’t be remembered by the public because of fancy and expensive visuals. But you will be remembered when you say something to them that they care about, interests them, entertains them a little bit, and / or teaches them something.

Think about a good-looking, well-groomed man in a sharp, expensive suit. Does that mean you’ll like him? Does that mean he’s valuable to you? Nope. It’s just a first impression. It all comes down to what comes out of his mouth when he speaks. It all comes down to whether he makes you comfortable. He could be also be wearing something a bit more casual (for a fraction of the cost of that expensive suit)…and still get the same response depending on what he said. Now, if he hasn’t showered in a few weeks…and looks like a ragamuffin, then you probably won’t even give him a chance to see what he says. Which is why it’s good to have a good-looking website, or a good-looking ad… but you need to put the bulk of your effort into what you communicate to the public in your ads and your marketing. The words matter. A lot.

Your marketing is like when you were dating and looking for that one true love to settle down for the rest of your life. How will you seduce them? What really matters through the whole process? You can’t keep them drunk forever. You’ll eventually have to say some things that connects with what they care about. You’ll eventually have to reveal your true self and see if you have something in common.

The same goes for radio marketing. You could have a professionally-polished radio ad that doesn’t really say anything at all. You could also have a radio ad done by your local radio rep that doesn’t have any substance to it either – just a lot of gum-flapping about how long you’ve been in business or that you have a knowledgeable staff. Your radio ad rep needs to be a writer too. They need to find out what makes your business shine…and then portray that strength in a manner that solves problems for your prospects. The ad can’t be all about you… it has to be about the person you’re hoping to attract. And if you find a good ad writer at your local radio station (Duane Christensen at Results Radio Townsquare Media in Sioux Falls wink wink), then you won’t be paying anything extra to get ads that finally work!  : )

I take the time to figure out what your potential new customer wants to hear…so they’ll contact you and do business with you. And if we say things in your ads that give them confidence in you…and then you deliver beautifully with your products, services, and customer service – you’ll be golden. I’ll help you attract new business, and then you compound that with great service, and you’ll propel your good-word-of-mouth even farther. That’s really what good advertising does – it speeds up the inevitable – it speeds up word-of-mouth. If you’re horrible at customer service, good advertising will help you go out of business faster. If you’re a customer service rock star, good advertising will take you to heights you never thought possible.

This was a little all over the place today… forgive me. My ADD comes and goes. Have a great day!

Duane Christensen

Results Radio Townsquare Media

Sioux Falls

605-940-7984

duane.christensen@results-radio.com

The Great Eraser of Advertising

/ Duane Christensen / 2 Comments

The Great Eraser of Advertising

Sioux Falls Radio Advertising

The great eraser of advertising is SLEEP.
Image courtesy of “Maggie Smith” / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The great eraser of advertising…is sleep. And I’m going to give credit to my understanding of this…to Roy Williams at the Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. When I went there for 3 days, years back…he literally changed how I looked at the world. And of course he also changed my understanding of how advertising works.

So, the great eraser of advertising is sleep. Every night we go to sleep, our brains purge all the junk out of our brains. It starts putting things like the hundreds of irrelevant marketing messages you were exposed to today into the proverbial trash bin. If it didn’t do this, our brains’ estimated 2500 terabytes of memory would fill up pretty fast. To put it another way, your brain has the potential to store about 2 trillion pictures of cats. Ha! But this is an estimate. Our brains are amazing and we’ll never truly understand how and why it does things.

So, how do we get a consumer’s brain to start remember the plumbing ads for Bob’s Plumbing? Or the mattress ads for the Princess Pea Mattress Factory?

For starters you need repetition to overcome the brain purging every night we sleep. You’ll need enough ads airing on the radio so that the average listener hears a certain radio ad 3 to 4 times per week. And after looking at radio listening habits across the nation, that equates to running 21 to 25 radio ads per week between 6am and 7pm. It’s the closest we can get to a formula when it comes to radio ad scheduling. Of course, there are other options regarding an ad schedule and the best use of your budget. And we can’t forget to take into account your competition and how much they’re advertising to the public.

This is how you get people to start remembering a business’ radio ads. Repetition is the first step towards branding. Just like Pavlov’s dogs, remember? The meat paste and the bell ringing and the drooling?

But getting the dogs to drool when they heard the bell wouldn’t have happened if Pavlov didn’t use meat. If he used lemon juice or Windex, he wouldn’t have got the results he did. In branding a business, there must be a message that’s pleasant and relevant shared with the radio listener that’s tied in with the business itself. You want to associate something good or something helpful with doing business with the particular advertiser who’s trying to get advertising results.

Otherwise…you’re just spouting words across the airwaves that nobody cares about – and will never have the chance to be remembered when people need what the advertiser offers. Amazing results from advertising will come when your ad is of the branding or relationship building nature that has a chance of making someone feel warm and fuzzy in a sense, when they hear it. And when you repeat those kinds of ads over and over, consistently, in a long-term plan, that’s when the “true branding” starts happening.

Then, your ads must also use words that aren’t boring us to death. They need to tell a story. They need to give us useful information. They need to “connect” with us and include a strong emotional element. We’re emotional beings. We like to do business with those we like and trust. Therefore, radio ads should always be increasing the listeners’ chances to like and trust an advertiser before they’ve ever even met them. Then, when the listener actually HAS a plumbing problem… when they’ve had enough of their sore back in the morning… they’ll definitely have Bob’s Plumbing and Princess Pea’s Mattress Factory among the top prospects or hopefully THE top choice for them to call.

Great advertising comes from the words you use…and the manner in which they’re used. I feel like I’m pretty darn good at that. Let me know if you’d like to talk about making your mark on Sioux Falls and the surrounding area. Thank you. Have a great day!

Duane Christensen
Results Radio Townsquare Media
Sioux Falls, SD
605-940-7984
duane.christensen@results-radio.com
http://duanechristensen.townsquareinteractive.com/

Radio Ads That Don’t Stink

/ Duane Christensen

Radio advertising, sioux falls advertisingYou get stinky radio advertising results when you have stinky radio ADS.

I know Radio Advertising works great when you have something interesting for people to listen to. And radio is much nicer to listen to when the ads aren’t so putrid! AND…and…and (this is me getting excited to talk to you about good radio advertising) and… and …and do you know what else? A radio station will have more happy listeners when of course the DJs are good and the programming is good…but also when the ads aren’t so sleeeeeepy, annoying, and uninteresting.

A bunch of the radio stations I’ve listened to in Sioux Falls and all over the country have the same mediocre and worse than mediocre ads that sound just like a newspaper ad read into a microphone. Sleepy Town. And not only are the ads kind of boring and blah blah blah…but they don’t work! Talk about double-yuck! It’s like they have a template on file for each business category, and they just insert the business name into the proper one. It’s a formula that creates haters of radio advertising.

Radio works great when you STRIP AWAY the clichés, the template-style writing, and all the things that everybody else drones on about in their ads (but nobody cares about). When you say things that are interesting and unexpected, people listen, and results / return on investment / increased market share will happen.

But then…you can even take a better than average ad and improve upon it. How do you do that? Help people visualize something. Help them SEE. Make a movie with your radio. Tell a story with visual words. How do the best fictional writers get us so hooked on their story? By making us feel like we’re there. The “gurus” say that radio is theater of the mind. And it IS. But very few actually create that kind of ad. When you DO, it’s powerful.

Let’s do something that works. Let’s leave out the everyday phrases nobody cares about. Replace them with something interesting that a listener can “latch onto” and cause them to REMEMBER you. Let’s make some radio ads that smell like chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven. When you do, you’ll love what radio advertising can do for your business.

Have a great day!

Duane Christensen

Sioux Falls Radio Advertising blog

I’m a radio ad writer and sales guy that works for Results Radio in Sioux Falls. Love my job. Of course it comes with stress and frustrations at times. But when you have a passion for something…what doesn’t? I like to help Sioux Falls business owners convince the public that their business is the bomb. It’s a process. But it doesn’t have to be rocket science. Let’s get started!