Wednesday, May 8, 2019

13 May Wednesday, May 8, 2019

This Week in The Lund Letter:  
>   Proven basics for better ratings
>   The master music scheduling manual
>   Non-traditional marketing gets new listeners
>   Saviors of the mall, digital selling and other Trends

Lund Basics: 5 Ways to Soup Up Ratings

This is designed for stations surveyed by Nielsen diary, PPM or Eastlan.  Here are five actions to improve your ratings:

1.   If you play music, tighten your playlist.  Music is the #1 reason you have listeners.  Make them happy.  Play the hits; remove the stiffs.  Reward listeners by playing just their favorite songs – those that research the best.

2.   Package your spots into one or two stopsets an hour, and play long sweeps of music.  After the early morning hours, non-stop music keeps listeners tuned in.

3.   Program for stronger recall.  Sell your station name often and always include the dial position.  Diary or phone methodology ratings depend on people “remembering” what they listened to going back a day or longer, and PPM rated stations also benefit from strong branding.  Say the station name 30-40 times an hour.  Repetition insures recognition and recall.

4.   Say the station name between every song.  Cold song-to-song music segues are a lost branding opportunity.

5.   Effectively tease what’s coming up.  Go into every stopset promoting a listener benefit coming up after the spots, like an artist or the weather.  Also tease a contest or feature ten or twenty minutes away.

Lund Programming Clinic: Music Tune-up

How do you get the best results from your music scheduling software?

Music scheduling software is a great tool for playing the right songs at the right times, but too many stations don’t understand the program that manages the majority of their airtime.  Job One: Examine the basic setup of your music software.

>   Make a backup…now.  Then make one every time you update music or change music clocks, and take one backup home with you.  Fires and other disasters can strike stations and studios.

>   Explore your library for duplicate songs; review a title sort and an artist sort.  Remove active duplicates and question why any duplicates exist.

>   Remove dead songs.  Chances are you’ll never play Gangnam Style by Psy again!

>   Purge your play history if it goes back farther than 45 days.  This saves program resources.  Clean out old format clocks that aren’t in use.  Kill inactive categories.  If something isn’t in use in the past year, question its existence!

>   Look for conflicting rules.  “Yesterday Rules” affect current and recurrent music, while “Prior Day” rules are used for slower rotating categories.  You rarely need both for the same category.  Examine artist packets and adjust for today’s needs.  The fewer the packets, the better.

>   Use a standard setup for artist names and check for variations that the music software treats as two different artists.

>   Use consistent sound codes and watch for conflicts.  Does “A” mean acoustic or acid rock…or both?

Music scheduling is like a funnel.  There’s a big opening at the top, but every rule constricts the flow of music choices to the bottom where the final song choices emerge.  Don’t choke your software with unneeded rules or restrictions.

Is Your Station’s Music Software Tuned for Success?

Playing the right songs and managing your music software controls are vital to a station’s success.  Lund Media can assist you with a comprehensive music review and software tune-up.  We’ll conduct a complete analysis of your playlist along with every aspect of your music software – rules, clocks, and rotations – and provide a quick turn-around.  Capitalize on the very thing listeners want most – the best researched music played in the best rotation for your target demo.  Email John Lund.


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.   Continually plan morning show stunts that stimulate talk for the station.  They should occur regularly throughout the ratings sweep. The goal is repeated tune-in to the morning show.

2.   Conduct non-traditional forms of marketing to guarantee you “touch” lots of new listeners every day.

3.   Form partnerships with organizers of community and holiday events – from Memorial Day to Independence Day and Back to School. Plan special weekends, remotes and participation.

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

Concerned About Your Marketing Budget?

Marketing builds audience, but it doesn’t have to be costly.  The Lund No-Cost Marketing Guide provides 200 ways to build audience for no cost.  Want to grab a bigger share of remote dollars?  Want to generate revenue while marketing for more listeners?   Put these tactics to use at your station…and provide a big bang for no bucks.  Order our No Cost Marketing Guide here.


Promotion of the Week: (Frequency)-Priced Gas

Gas prices are inching higher.  Offer gas at a big discount, priced to your station’s dial position.  The lower the number the better!  Promote heavily and invite the TV stations!  Issue a gas challenge to all local gas stations to come up with the cheapest gas per gallon.  If you have a higher frequency than your competitors, consider free gas instead – you don’t want them stealing your thunder.

Do You Need A Great Promotion?

Our Summer and Fall Promotions Guides outline every programming and sales promotion you’ll need for the months ahead.  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 our Fall Promotions Guide now and receive the Summer Promotions Guide free.   Order here to get both guides.

Lund Trend Watch:

Teens Love the Mall

While Millennials tried to kill the mall, Generation Z (7-22 year olds) spend quality time there.  Gen Z keeps confounding researchers.  They’ve shunned beer, want companies to take political stands, and they trust the Kardashians to make their makeup choices.  About 95% have visited a shopping center within the last three months as opposed to just 7% of Millennials and 58% of Gen X.  The International Council of Shopping Centers report that 75% of Gen Z says brick-and-mortar stores offer a better shopping experience than online.

Digital Advertising Leaps

The biggest trend shaping the future of broadcasting is the growth of digital.  Audio streaming has enjoyed a six-fold leap in the past eight years.  Digital ad spending overtook TV for the first time in 2016.  A majority of U.S. advertising dollars will be spent on digital media in 2019 (54.2%).  Buyers of traditional media are comfortable purchasing a myriad of digital ads from their local sales person, so sellers should be prepared to sell offers across multiple platforms, according to Doug Ferber, DEFcom Advisors.

Key Receptivity for Mobile Ads

Mobile ads get the most attention when smartphone owners are:

+   Watching TV (59%)
+   Lying in bed before sleep (51%)
+   Eating a meal (36%)
+   Shopping/running errands (25%)


Programmer’s Planner:

May 12: Mother’s Day (this Sunday)
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: Reinventing radio.

Thanks for reading
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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.