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Targeting the PPM People: How Are They Different? Next Steps: Many Ways to Max Your Meters, Part 5
October 8, 2012
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. If you have a strong morning show, you may be squandering a massive PPM advantage. Do everything possible, and particularly consider actual morning-talent content breaks, to recycle passionate AMD fans. For stations that target 44 and under: Target your users who may be 18-24 or 35-44, but are in more of a 25-34 state of mind / stage of life. Do everything you can think of to build up your database. And then use the database as your constant consumer-relations-and-value-content vehicle.
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[No matter what Arbitron says, the PPM-friendly population, pure and simple, is nowhere close to a representative sample of the population in general.  Over many months, this series has been discussing how stations can identify and exploit the key differences between radio users who will agree to take the PPM and those who will not. In the past four weeks of this series, we have been highlighting and reviewing some of those ideas. With this final installment, we will conclude that recap, leaving you with two dozen different thought-starters. Each one will help maximize your meters. Using as many of these ideas as you can, taken together, you will have a very solid long-term strategic path to getting the most PPM bang for your product and marketing buck.]Â
Recapping our list so far [Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3- Week 4]:
- Use every opportunity to benchmark the station as a money-saving resource. Saying yes to PPM IS about the money. Hit that same button.
- People who really love a music station or a morning show are much better PPM Prospects. To get more love, do a radio consumer research study. Not a radio station product research study.
- When researching the consumer base, identify and profile “PPM Types” that the station can market to, in what tone, and with what media.Â
- Ask this about everything you do, on and off air:Â Does this help or hurt our appeal to those in our audience who have a “Middle-American-Mindset” psychographic/personality?Â
- Go all-out on texting. PPM Prospects tend to be texters, and are dramatically more receptive than others to radio station texts.Â
- PPM Prospects pay significantly more attention than others to direct marketing messages. Once you have identified and located the target types, hit that target hard with frequent, tailor-targeted direct mail and direct email.Â
- When your station has significant appeal to parents with children at home, nurture that population and develop greater resonance and appeal with them.Â
- PPM Prospects are much more likely to be Facebook power-users, and much less likely to be non-Facebook people, than are other consumers. Be all over Facebook and, as appropriate to your target, other social media as well.
- Make sure that you are targeting, in your programming and marketing, the traditionalists who maintain a strong positive attitude about Radio.Â
- Narrowly define your money target as two particular subgroups. First, identify and profile the types who are particularly eager to make their voice heard by the radio industry.Â
- Target meaningful, benchmarked content…both on and off-air, at the “hear me!” types.Â
- Â Direct much of your external marketing toward the “hear me!” types.Â
-  Be there for the listener who trusts Radio. Trust is huge, hard to establish if it is not there, ours to lose if it is.
-  These are people who need people. Always communicate a human presence and warmth and conveyance of information.Â
- Â Define the second subgroup of your money target:Â Identify and profile the types for whom the dollars from Arbitron are enough to make it worth months of inconvenience and intrusion.Â
-  Serve your lower end consumers meaningfully, with benchmarkable content they will value. On and off air. They may be a minority of your audience, but when it comes to Arbitron, they will constitute your majority.
-  Use big-prize contesting. It has very strong appeal to, and psychographic congruence with, PPM Prospects. Â
-  If you are a music station, do not disregard the value of information. PPM Users value Radio for information far more than other consumers.Â
-  PPM Prospects tend to be more comfortable with technology, and are much more likely than other consumers of same age and income levels to have a smartphone. So: How many different ways can you get on her smartphone?Â
And now, let’s conclude: -  If you have a strong morning show, you may be squandering a massive PPM advantage. Do everything possible, and particularly consider actual morning-talent content breaks, to recycle passionate AMD fans. Consumers who have a morning show that they really love are much more likely than others to accept a PPM. Consequently, they are dramatically overrepresented in the Meter Pool. And, of course, that means all of their listening, not just their morning listening, will be dramatically overrepresented in the ratings. So if you have a passionate morning show fan who flees down the dial for the rest of his listening day, he is a huge loss to you and a huge windfall to the competition. Critically ask yourself: are you slipping after AMD, because you are not squeezing enough other-dayparts juice from your AMD fans? What happens after the beloved morning talent is gone? Are they gone for good until the next morning? Without them, is your best hope to recycle their fans based only on brand loyalty and inertia? Really? In this age of dozens of places to find the music you like, with or without a liner-reading Jane Jock? Think about squeezing the most juice out of these key meter-wearers by weaving tiny tastes of your exceptional morning talent into the workday, and certainly strongly consider a couple of time-benchmarked breaks in PM Drive. Certainly more valuable to your passionate morning fans, and thus to your numbers, than a random break by Jane Jock.Â
-  For stations that target 44 and under: Target your users who may be 18-24 or 35-44, but are in more of a 25-34 state of mind / stage of life. 25-34’s are more inclined to say yes to the PPM than other age brackets. This makes sense. Think about what qualities are most present in 25-34’s that would make folks say yes. Now, turn those qualities into a psychographic/socioeconomic target group. This group may be most prevalent among 25-34’s, but will also include tons of 35-44’s and 18-34’s. Which is huge. Because those are the 35-44’s and 18-24’s who will say yes to PPM more than their peers. So what are these qualities? First, greater digital-device-friendliness than older consumers, which is highly relevant. They also have faster-increasing expenses / lower incomes than older consumers. Meanwhile, they have greater responsibilities, often including kids, more of a need to balance their budget, more of a sense of commitment, less stubborn independence, fewer privacy concerns, and less of a priority to style vs. functionality, than do younger consumers. Bottom line: to maximize your meters, target people with those qualities, regardless of chronological age, wherever you find them across 18-44.Â
-  Do everything you can think of to build up your database. Listeners who bond strongly with a music station are much more likely to accept a PPM. Most more-music stations do not bond well, because they’ve gotten only as bonded as they can get on that air product alone. Meanwhile, as most businesses realize today, the key to building and sustaining relationships with our consumer base is to be high-touch, high-communication, high-benefit-providing OUTSIDE your air product. Our Web presence (see below) is only the incoming aspect. Far more important is the outgoing aspect. Constant communication, particularly targeted, to your Database. The database is much more than a promotional vehicle. It is the identifiable, and constantly reachable, traffic in and out of your store. Your consumer base. And since you don’t have a chance to chat and build relationships with them in the store, that database is more important to you than it would be to a brick/mortar business, and nearly as important as it is to an online-only business. Are you doing everything you can to get everyone in your audience into that database? Are you using social media and tell-a-friend vehicles to attract them? What are you offering for incentive? Make it a meaningful incentive. And not just one. Think about all sectors of your audience. Some might be motivated by an exclusive daily download of new music, while others might be motivated by an amazing discount deal. Think out-of-the-box creatively, think convenience, as in downloadable, and think about your listener’s lifestyle. Not station goodies. (Which would also make the ungrounded assumption that the consumer is already bonded to our call letters. Exception: if you have a truly great morning show, consider offering exclusively to database members, gratis, the daily members-only bonus podcast.) Immediate gratification for signing up, as opposed to any rewards she may accumulate later via loyalty programs. Think of the long-term value of being able to communicate whenever/whatever to that consumer.
-  And then use the database as your constant consumer-relations-and-value-content vehicle. Offer them constant juicy content, constant $$ value, constant and well-targeted and benchmarked lifestyle-benefit info, hot news in their area of interest, and some fun, funny, entertaining or just strange and goofy stuff. How often are you emailing content that the database will actively want to read, as opposed to a commercial? Are you benchmarking and sending out a meaningful, meaty, only modestly self-promoting but mostly user-focused daily digest? Are you giving them the sense of, and the meaningful opportunity for, a two-way communication? Are you thinking of your database communication the way a store sees its personnel on site, when they interact with the consumer? Are you building relationships? And are you then taking the knowledge of who your customers are and using it to get to know and to serve them better?
- Use every opportunity to benchmark the station as a money-saving resource. Saying yes to PPM IS about the money. Hit that same button.
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