Wednesday, May 1, 2019

06 May Wednesday, May 1, 2019

This Week in The Lund Letter:  
>   Better music scheduling
>   Radio’s “store locator”
>   Lund Laws of Programming (part 1)
>   Radio is the #1 listening source and other Trends

Lund Programming Clinic: Music Scheduling is High Tech/High Touch

Maximize your music programming. Listeners who love your music guarantee longer listening spans and higher ratings.  You get there by blending the “high tech” of music scheduling programs with the “high touch” of human editing and review.  Consider these five steps:

1.   Rules and policies are important, but conduct a personal review after scheduling to edit the songs that simply don’t fit together.  By looking at other replacement choices, you may spot songs that have gone too long without airplay.

2.   Check the songs you play – Currents, Recurrents and Gold.  By their nature, recurrents can be the weakest songs (burnout, changing test values) or the strongest (most familiar and liked).  They are also the most ignored by some programmers who move all currents to recurrent play (not all deserve that honor) and then to gold (ditto).  Each step in a song’s life is a good time to evaluate its worth to your playlist.

3.   With digital automation, some stations over-program music and usually don’t reconcile logs to put skipped titles back in rotation.  Check rotation clocks for song positions that never play and remove those from scheduling orders.  Some stations run heavier music counts on Sunday and Monday.  Different hot clocks for different days may help.

4.   Run your “most scheduled” reports for recurrents and gold, not just for current product.  Does the list fairly represent your station?  Those one-hit wonders that are easily scheduled may be playing more often than you think!

5.   Spot check five segments on the music log each day.  Does each 15-20 minute segment properly represent your station’s sound?  If not, edit again!

Give Your Music Software a Check-Up! 

Music is the #1 reason people listen to radio.   Playing the right songs and managing your music software are vital to your station’s success.  Lund Media provides a comprehensive music review and software tune-up.  We’ll conduct a complete analysis of your playlist along with your music software – rules, clocks, and rotations.   We also provide a quick turn-around.

Capitalize on the very thing listeners want most – the top researched music played in the best rotation for your format and demo target.  For a complete music software analysis and tune-up, email John Lund.

And if you just need a best-researched “safe list” for your format, we have that also.

Lund Management Alert: Promote Ways to Listen

Many retailers have a “store locator” on their websites, and chain restaurants list their locations on their menu along with their website address to order take-out.  Radio stations promote their dial position knowing diary keepers write it down as opposed to call letters in a ratings diary.

With the huge growth of smart speakers, smartphones and mobile devices, radio stations should include promoting the various ways to receive the radio station beyond the terrestrial signal.  Computers are definitely prevalent in the workplace, so radio stations can build at-work listening and promote their website address during the workday.  Smart speaker sales are growing; it makes sense to promote enabling it so listeners can hear the station in the home.

There are many ways you can promote your website, stream, and enabling smart speakers:

>   Contesting:  Tag contest promos by going to the station website for the complete rules and/or to enter.

>   Concerts:  Tag concert spots to direct listeners to the station website for ticket info and link with a ticket provider for listeners to buy tickets from your station’s website.

>   Air personality blogs: Your air talents should post on your station website stories they have garnered from show prep, videos, pictures, and audio which they can point listeners to on the air.   A key post could be a story on one of the station’s core artists.  Artist and song information is an obvious.  Display a “Now Playing” list near the stream “listen” button.

>   Promote that listeners can hear the station on their computer using the station’s website.

>   Run promos on how listeners can enable their smart speaker to pick up the station.  Post instructions or an instructional video on the website on enabling the listener’s smart station to receive the station.

>   Encourage your morning talent to post podcasts of their best bits on the station website and promote it during their show.

>   Offer special deals from clients on the station website, like pre-sale code for major concerts and VIP entry for major events.

>   Develop a station loyal listener club by capturing their email addresses to communicate with them on a regular basis.  Promote regularly on air.

>   Incorporate website polls coupled with on air content.

>   Salute community leaders on the station’s website

>   Post videos of artist performances at the radio station or a local venue.

>   For News-Talk, post photos of news stories and complete text for stories.

Radio stations have a huge advantage over internet-only content in promoting the various ways to receive their content.  Listening at work to a station’s stream can deliver huge Time Spent Listening.  Listening at home on smart speakers represents a new opportunity for at home listening.  Develop your website content that will draw listeners to your website which offers streaming, and promote aggressively on the air by running frequent imaging liners.

Found! Creative Imaging Liners

Make an emotional connection to your listeners by adding humor to your station’s imaging.  Humor tugs at our emotions, elicits a positive emotion, and creates a lasting impression of your brand.  By utilizing humor in your imaging, you enhance your relationship with listeners and, as a result, increase your time spent listening.

Your listeners want variety – not unlike the music that’s played.  Refresh your imaging liners today.  Get creatively written imaging liners from Lund Media Group.  For music stations order here, and for News-Talk order here.


Lund’s Top 3:  Getting More Listeners
  
Regardless of your format, our goal is to help stations get more listeners and keep them listening longer. Lund’s Laws of Programming are essential basics required to increase the listening audience.

1.   Gain new cume trial through external advertising.  Lock in visual advertising (outdoor, TV, email and Facebook).

2.   Keep positioning simple and memorable. Keep visual ads to seven words or less.

3.   Be visible and locally involved.  Be seen everywhere!  Plan street promotions for top-of-mind awareness.  Park your van on busy streets and overpasses.

Next week, more tips on increasing your audience.  For more Top 3 lists, check out www.lundradio.com.


Promotion of the Week: The Cash Clunker

Offer a chance to win cash every hour by asking callers to identify a song played in the 7 AM hour. The song they pick must also be the next selection up on your playlist (a special contest playlist that consists of pre-recorded announcements of the “next song” but not your actual station playlist).  Chances are slim! (This used to be the $1000 Jukebox but many may not know what that is anymore!)

Do You Need A Great Promotion?

Our “Spring & Summer Promotions” Guide outlines every programming and sales promotion you’ll need.  Over 100 audience-building promotions, contests, sales promotions and show prep ideas will make your stations sizzle right now and through summer … and help the sales staff lock in new dollars.

Order now and receive our new “Promotion & Contest Strategies” guide free.   Order here to get both guides.

Lund Trend Watch:

Social Network Users on Smartphones

About 52% of all social network users in the US will be mobile-only this year according to a Marketer forecast. Smartphone use continues to grow.  The majority of Facebook’s US users have been mobile-only since 2016.  This year, it’s expected to be 66%.  For Twitter mobile-only will be 43% this year in the US.  Instagram is the second most popular network in the country and it’s primarily mobile-only.  Likewise, Snapchat. Facebook is testing a prototype that would shift its marquee News Feed to a mobile-friendly swipe interface.

Loyalty Program Growth

Loyalty programs have been part of retailers’ marketing bags for decades, but in the digital space new options for loyalty programs appear nearly every year. Last year, a number of big names brands like Kohl’s and Nordstrom’s revamped their programs to make them simpler, more convenient, and bring greater value to customers.  The goal is to bring the customer back again and again.  This is the goal of radio station loyalty programs that email and text to their database of frequent listeners.  This is the most effective and cheapest marketing tactics for businesses – including radio stations.

Radio Remains First

Radio reaches more Americans than any other media source.  Nielsen Media says it’s 92% among Adults 18+.  This is more than twice the usage of the next platform, streaming audio on smartphones, at 45%.  Podcasts are #3 with 19% of usage, followed by satellite radio at 16%.  Radio maintains its broad reach because of high usage out of home, and in-car listening represents 65% of all non-home radio use.  That increases to 77% on weekends. Nearly one-third of non-home listening occurs at work.


Programmer’s Planner:

May 5: Cinco De Mayo (this Sunday)
May 12: Mother’s Day
May 18: Armed Forces Day
May 24: Start of Memorial Day Weekend
May 27: Memorial Day
June 14: Flag Day
June 16: Father’s Day

Next week in the Lund Letter: 5 ways to achieve higher ratings.

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About Lund Media

For over 20 years, the Lund Media Group has provided programming, music consulting, operational guidance, and research to broadcast stations throughout North America and overseas. With specialists in every format, the Lund Goal is to help stations get more listeners and keep them listening longer.

Call John Lund for more information about how the Lund Media Group can help your stations achieve more listeners, higher ratings, and more revenue.
Phone: 650-692-7777.
Email john@lundradio.com.