The Most Effective Marketing Is Free!
Is it more impactful to run ten second talent-voiced teases for tomorrow morning’s show or to play brief clips of great audio from the show? Clips from the show are a hundred times more effective!
The only way talent teases work is for huge events, contests, or big-name interviews. Simply teasing a topic or feature for the next morning will not drive people to listen.
Replaying priceless on-air moments exposes that content to a greater percentage of the show’s audience. The most effective imaging highlights what the show and individual personalities are known for, or want to be known for, to help get ownership of those attributes. That can include humor, point of view, benchmarks, interacting with callers, etc.
When to air Morning Show Imaging?
Like all smart marketing campaigns, only run morning show imaging when a show is performing in the ratings and when newer shows are getting traction with the audience.
Run morning show promos 24/7, including during the morning show. Why run promos during the show? Captivating clip promos can entice non-fans (e.g. P-2’s, 3’s, new listeners) to continue listening longer.
Where to run imaging during the show?
Place them out of commercial stop sets as a rejoin going into music or back into talk content. If you’re concerned that listeners will be confused about whether the clip is part of the current show conversation, the VO can set up the clip with lines like, “Previously on Bailey and Southside” or “Another Todd and Jayde moment.”
3 Types of Effective Morning Show Imaging
- Best of Promos: Some of the easiest imaging to produce is “best of moment” imaging. Mark great show moments after they happen to make gathering them an efficient process. Clips can be from this morning’s show or a show from six months ago. The goal is to brand and sell the show.
- Character Clip Promos: Excerpt clips from the show that focuses on one player. The purpose of this type of imaging is to connect the name of the talent with their voice and highlight their character. Character Clip promos greatly speed up the time that it takes listeners to become familiar with a personality.
- It’s time-consuming to find clips that clearly highlight character. Some talents can go into the studio and record characterizing comments for promos as if they were said on-air. They must sound totally natural to be effective.
- It’s better to focus on one talent at a time rather than run clips of all the players on ensemble cast shows. For example: VO “The Bert Show, Spotlight on Bert.”
- Listener Testimonial Promos: Testimonials are effective when listeners cite specific qualities about the show such as, “I never miss Facebook Fights”, or “I love Can’t Beat Caddy.” Stay away from generic ones that can be about any show such as “I listen every morning,” “They are so funny”, etc. Here are examples from Ken, Colleen and Kurt at Star in Des Moines.
Be inventive and imaginative, but be careful to not obscure the message. Match the production and voicing to the essence of the show, then sit back and watch the recall and ratings go up. You’ve got free advertising available 24/7 – use it!
Photo Credit: flickr.com/photos/90626755@N05/
