Whether I’m lecturing on the subject of radio, writing for media or how to market your small business, one of my main mantras is that sex doesn’t sell…fear sells! It’s one of those pesky survival instincts that we still carry around from our caveman days.
If your message isn’t relevant to my immediate situation (and survival) I won’t pay attention to it. Craft your message so that it’s relevant to my immediate situation and your message will be burned into my memory.
What’s On Their Mind
Think about what’s on the mind of your potential client as they are discovering your message. Are they exposed to your message while reading a magazine? What’s the subject of the magazine and how can you craft your message to coincide with what they’re thinking about? Perhaps they are exposed to your message in the form of a poster in a hockey arena…how can you create a relevant message to sell your product/service?
Being Relevant
If you’re a home decorator and you’ve decided to attract all of the hockey Moms of your neighbourhood at the arena with a poster, play up the fact that while they’re “…stuck here at the arena, who’s updating the look of your home so you won’t look ridiculous when all the other hockey Moms come over for coco later”…?
How can you make your small business message relevant for the places you’ve decided to do your marketing?
One marketing message for all situations won’t work, you need to make it relevant!
Contrary to popular belief I’m not in the voice over business…I am in the storytelling business. Every script I receive is a story in one form or another and I’m hired to tell that story. If you’ve attended one of my lectures you will already know that this is my core approach to everything I do.
That said look at this awesome :30 second story, told without a voice over at all:
I‘ve worked in and studied the art of communicating ideas for over 25 years. To me, how we communicate ideas to each other is a never ending fascination.
Today we live in what my friend Nick Michaels calls “the over communicated world”, with a never ending stream of new and interesting ways to connect through traditional and digital channels.
The purpose of this blog is to explore, understand and craft the way we communicate: verbally and visually, theoretically and practically, informally and professionally.
If you work in the media or are simply a casual student, this blog promises to inspire and intrigue.
It was a beautiful spring morning in Montréal, the kind we had dreamt about all winter long, the smell of Saturday was calling out, the birds were singing their morning song, the smell of freshly cut grass occasionally blew in.
My wife, sons and I decided to go out for brunch at a local restaurant. As we sat there on the terrace I noticed a group of teenagers across the street who were holding a car wash.
Whether they were a softball team, soccer team, school band I wasn’t quite sure. It was obvious however, that they were having quite a difficult time attracting anyone despite the fact that there had been a downpour the night before. They were waving their signs, yelling and jumping up and down but to no avail. After watching this scene for maybe half an hour and as our waitress cleared the table I had an idea…was it a need to help or just my own selfish desire to prove a point? I don’t know.
I grabbed a black Sharpie from the car and ran across the street. After introducing myself and my idea I took 4 of their signs, flipped them over and simply wrote: “Car Wash $10”. I headed back to the restaurant to enjoy my freshly frothed cappuccino and to see my plan unfold.
Sure enough, before I could get past the foam topping, cars had started to pull into the parking lot and by the time I had paid the bill, there was a lineup! All in a days work I thought as I piled my family into the car to head home…just like I had told one of my clients the week before ‘the simpler the message the better’! Baltimore Paving Pros website offers affordable asphalt paving and sealing solutions.
While the kids had thought to bring all of their buckets, wash cloths, hoses, soap and a change of cloths all the elements you need for a successful car wash they hadn’t thought about how they were going to attract their customer. Their attempts were confusing at best, each one of their signs had different messages each explaining in a different way what the car wash was for, why they should stop and let them wash their car, etc. What they needed was one simple and clear message to attract customers “Car Wash $10”.
Think It Through So how does this apply to branding your radio station? Think about it, you’ve spent millions of dollars buying and setting up a transmitter, setting up a radio station, hiring the right people and picking the right music, but how much thought have put into the message you’re using to attract customers.
It has been said that radio people are so close to their radio station that all they see are the trees. Radio listeners on the other hand, see the forest, the bigger picture. Well, these days in our over communicated world I’ll take it a further step back: Radio listeners today are seeing that forest as they fly down the highway of life doing 100 mph!! So how do you expect them to see what it is you’re selling amidst a landscape filled with messages?
We have to create a message that is so simple, so clear that nobody can miss its intention. “Car Wash $10”.
What’s Your Message?
Some products can be as easily identified by there positioning statement as by the brand name or logo. Here are some examples:
• “The Real Thing”
• “Mm’mm Good”
• “I’m lovin’ it”
• “Eat Fresh”
• “Just Do It”
So what message are you giving to your listeners?
• Your Favourites of the 70’s 80’s 90’s and Today
• The Rock Station That Really Rocks
• Give us 30 minutes. We’ll give you an incredible variety of songs
• The only radio station that gives you 50-minute music hours
• All your favourite songs from all your favourite stars
All very nice but memorable? No.
You need to pick a word or short phrase and own it. Make it signify what your station is in the mind of your listener. Your message needs to be sharpened to the point where it can cut through the clutter of our over communicated world.
Keep it simple, keep it focused, keep it clear, keep it consistent and you’ll get them lining up around the corner.
Whether writing for an online catalog, a blog or an e-newsletter, certain rules hold true. (In many cases, they’re similar to those your 8th grade English teacher taught you.) “How to write for the Web” at USC’s Online Journalism Review, edited by Robert Niles, offers some concise tips for highly effective online communication:
Keep it short and sweet. Online readers have remarkably short attention spans. Expect them to skip over flowery prose and any paragraph running longer than five lines. Break text up with bullet points, bold headers and block quotes.
Maintain an active voice. Overly complex tenses (e.g. will have been) and overuse of the passive verb “to be” (e.g. is, was or were) lend a passive tone. We handily exceeded expectations has more punch than We will have handily exceeded expectations or Expectations were handily exceeded.
Attribute your sources. You earn maximum credibility by making it easy for readers to find your source material. Provide a URL (a Web page’s address) or—even better—a hypertext link (a highlighted word that links to the URL) embedded in your text with simple html codes.
Finally, do a quick spell-check before publishing. Even one mistake looks sloppy and can weaken your authority on the subject.
Learn more here at the Annenberg Center for Communication at USC.
David Tyler is a creative communicator and voice over talent with 35+ years of experience in the broadcasting.
His mantra of ‘Stop Communicating and Start Connecting’ is his counsel to anyone attempting to use media, old or new, broadcast or online.
He writes and lectures on “The Art of Communicating Ideas.”
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