Your Station’s Most Powerful Marketing Weapon Is You

Many of my favorite station meetings involved strategic planning for the future – especially marketing and promotion. There were TV spots to write and cut, outdoor creative to be completed, social and digital campaigns to be laid out, and contests and promotions to be readied for launch. That’s not the norm of late, especially when it comes to paid marketing. But regardless of budget constraints, you still have access to a mighty marketing machine.  That’s because your station’s most powerful marketing weapon is you.

Why You Are the Perfect Marketing Weapon for the Times

Your personal marketing power is undiminished even if your budget is non-existent. Even better, you have significant advantages no other paid promotional vehicle carries.

First and foremost of these is “trust and credibility.” We know from A&O&B’s annual on-line perceptual “Roadmap,” that the most successful on-air talent are perceived by listeners to be friends and “people like me.” So when Nielsen reports that friends and family are the most trusted source of recommendations, citing up to up 90% trust in peers, you, as a talent, are already in a position to be a powerful influencer.

And, because you’ve endorsed products on your show that listeners have found valuable, you’ve already have established trust and credibility. So when you are marketing your radio station (something that happens continuously – consciously or unconsciously), you’re speaking from a position of believability, authority, and authenticity.

Your second advantage is that you’re not constrained to a single medium. You can leverage virtually any platform and, most importantly, have the ability to make in-person appearances anywhere you choose. These are efficient vehicles to help your “customers” to know you – and your station – in a powerful and personal way

And of course, there’s the giant footprint you leave with your live radio show and the thousands of loyal listeners you reach each week.

If you’re thinking this sounds like you are in a position to be an awesome influencer marketer, you’re spot on. In fact, the timing (and finances) for you to succeed as a brand advocate couldn’t be better.

Influencer Agita

Don’t confuse your power-filled position with your stereotypical standard social media influencer. You have far more positives and far fewer negatives.  For example:

• Sponsored posts are no longer generating the same level of audience interaction.

• 52% of Millennials say they trust social media influencers less these days.

• Plus, because COVID-19 issues have significantly reduced the number of paid influencers because of canceled and delayed endorsement campaigns, you have an even greater opportunity to be seen and heard.

The issues that are kryptonite to your typical social media influencer don’t apply to you.

Ready, Set, Influence

Here are 6 recommendations culled from Forbes (my comments in italics) that you can use as a checklist to ensure that your station’s most powerful marketing weapon is you

1 – Don’t be Like Everyone Else

There’s already a surplus of ‘announcers’ (and order-taker-type salespeople and relatively uncreative-creatives). They’re commodities and as such have no power to influence anything. The field of “inimitable” is far less crowded.

2 – Adhere to a Social Media Strategy

Sure, you can post random stuff, but imagine the lift you give yourself as an influencer if what you post is primarily related to what you’re famous for. And the more creative ways you can make this happen, the more fascinating and effective you’ll be. Plus your posts have added credibility because they’re organic, not paid.

3 – Create Great Content

Your content is an extension of who you are. Whether you can see us or not, we’re evaluating you through your content. It doesn’t matter if anyone is in the stands at an MLB game or not; fans know whether you hit a home run with the bases loaded or struck out.

4 – Promote

As a station marketer, you have a lot of weapons at your disposal. You promote inside and outside your show, use multiple platforms to showcase what you do, post-promote to remind listeners of why they like you and your brand, and never let your great content to go unrecognized.

5 – Collaborate

Collaboration not only allows others to be part of your content process (and feel special as a result), it broadens your horizons as well as your connections. These are important if you’re to maximize your value as a station marketing super-power. Plus, when you incorporate user-generated content (UGC) into your own efforts, you’ll add credibility to this very special type of audience engagement.

6 – Engage

Appear in person as often as possible, demonstrating that you’re a real, believable, and trustworthy friend. Give of yourself to the benefit of others. With the help of a tickler file, you have access to times when you, your station, and your listeners (and advertisers) have crossed paths. Thus, you never miss the chance to celebrate something with the audience – an anniversary of a prize they won, when they joined your database, etc. You are the equivalent of those “we thought you’d like to see this memory” posts on Facebook.

Time Well-Spent

Entrepreneur says, “Recognizing that consumers are more interested in what their peers have to say, leaders would be smart to invest in the people in the trenches…”

The more listeners can see you as a real person, trying to make themselves and the people around them better, the more you prove that your station’s most powerful marketing weapon is you.

But there’s one more bonus.

While you’re advocating your terrific radio station, you’ll also be elevating your already awesome personal brand to new heights.

Related:

Ten Ways You Can Stand Out from Everyone Else

Making Your Station Part of the Conversation

Do More With Les by Empowering Your Superfans

© 2020, Mike O’Malley, O’Malley Media Group, LLC

Photo Credit: Eleanor121 on Morguefile.com