Radio: The Soundtrack of Local Heroes Wearing PPE
Radio’s strengths have come to the foreground during this pandemic by providing companionship and honoring local heroes on the front-line saving lives and providing service to us all. RLC contributor, Andrew Curran, gives us insights on the benefits of helping local people and businesses .
~ Randy
During past conflicts, heroes shipped off to foreign lands with the Armed Forces Network serving as a soundtrack and trusted voice.
Think of Robin Williams uttering that most famous of phrases, “Goooooood morning Vietnam!”
Today our COVID-19 heroes remain stateside, which means they aren’t tuning into AFN. Instead they are listening to their favorite local station.
You are entertaining, informing and inspiring them, while simultaneously offering companionship.
For cashiers, health care workers, delivery drivers, and all of those on the domestic front lines, radio remains their #1 choice and the 800-pound gorilla of audio.
As more people return to the workplace, listening will increase, but it won’t happen overnight. It will be more like waves of marathon runners crossing the “resumed my daily commute” finish line.
As that happens and the economy recovers, having a top 5 rank position will be essential to getting on ad buys.
Your station’s ability to connect and engage off-air with the employed, Heavy Listeners who matter most is the #1 way you can generate the daily cume necessary to drive ratings and win revenue.
Executing this approach isn’t as much about available budget as it is about mindset.
Since this pandemic began, stations have featured hundreds of local businesses on-air. Along with creating warm leads for account executives, stations should nicely be asking for reciprocity. Each local business has an email list and a social media presence of their own and they’d be more than willing to promote the station. They also have a radio at work and can start listening to your station, if they aren’t doing so already.
Earlier this month Taylor Swift created national headlines by reaching out to a nurse in Utah and sending her some Lover promotional and a hand written note in honor of her birthday. Celebrating Hometown Heroes and birthdays is something radio stations do every day. It makes for great social media as well as content for your station email newsletters.
These individual efforts drive top-of-mind awareness and listening among those Heavy Listeners who commute to work.
For those unfamiliar with DMR/Interactive, these insights don’t reflect a new awareness or an opportunistic shift, but rather the foundation of our strategic approach to marketing that’s driven client success for more than 30 years.
Radio’s 100th anniversary is going to be unlike any other year in our history. Our ability to provide listeners with local content and context in real-time is truly an enormous advantage over streaming audio platforms. Thank you for continuing to serve in the “public interest, convenience and necessity” and for driving radio forward.
Photo credit: United Nations
