THE ONE THING YOU SHOULD NEVER ALLOW TO LEAD A SPOT
Listen to the spots on your station(s). On your competitors'. More than anything else, what do you hear at the beginnings?
You just read it: a question.
For some reason, almost every other spot I hear -- and I'm including national network creative, on TV as well as radio -- seems to begin with a question. It's the laziest, least-creative way to start a selling message that I can think of. But it's worse than that: it shoots down any effectiveness that spot might have, right off the bat.
When a spot begins with something like "Are you in the market for a new washer?" you've left yourself wide open to immediate tune-out. Your client might argue that he's trying to sell washers and wants to appeal to people who are in the market for one. Fine. But what about the vast majority of listeners who don't need a new washer right now? Are you -- and your client -- content to nudge them out of the conversation in its first few seconds?
That's exactly what happens when you allow your sales and production people to write commercials that begin with questions. Using our washer example, it's safe to assume that 98% of listeners who hear that spot are NOT in the market for a washer at that moment. Either they can't afford one or, more likely, simply don't need one. What are we going to DO with those folks while we pitch the great washer deals at the local appliance store to the remaining 2%?
LOSE them, that's what.
Here's why: When you ask a question at the top of a spot, you immediately engage the listener's brain. It's a direct question: Are you in the market for a new washer? For almost all of them the first response is, "Nope. Not me." Well, NOW what? Are you content to let that 98% wander off (intellectually, anyway) for another 28 or 58 seconds? If you do that, you've lost them for that amount of time at least. Maybe a lot longer.
You've also lost a valuable chance to sell them on your client's product or service, even if they don't need it right now. As a radio station manager, you need to be vigilant with every spot that airs. You need to instill in your staff, however small it may be, that VALUE is the key to what you offer. Value for that appliance dealer means engaging every possible listener for the entire length of the spot, whether they're in the market for his product or not.
This isn't hard to do but it does take a little more effort than simply launching a spot with a question and charging ahead. Instead of that, urge your staff to think this way: "What's newsworthy about this business? What's in it for me?" And here is where you sell dreams. Solutions. Answers. Convenience. A better mousetrap. Here's where you talk about how wonderful it is when you know your clothes are truly clean. When colors are bright and whites are white. When time previously spent in drudgery can now be spent on family, friends, activities, life. When an investment of hard-earned dollars returns something that will last for years.
Here's where you remind listeners that your client's appliance dealership is renowned for its service department, so that even their old washer can be repaired dependably and quickly.
Now, you've built value for your client's BRAND. You can sell washers in that spot, of course. But you must sell value, dependability, new product lines, SOMETHING to appeal to EVERY listener.
When you do this, you go a long way toward eliminating that age-old objection, "I tried radio and it didn't work". Of course it works. It works every time when it's done right. Leading a spot with a question isn't the way to make it work. Selling value -- for EVERY listener -- is.
