With Black Friday and Cyber Monday, some of your listeners will have already finished their holiday shopping. Invite those who have to call so they can rub it in with the rest of us in a new feature called Go Ahead and Make Us Feel Like Crap!
Lots of shows do positive news. It’s a great feature to communicate your values to the audience and works because it’s the opposite of the world so many listeners experience each day. For many, while the content is the same, the frame is different. We recently changed a few things about this feature on George, Mo, and Erik, the Morning Bullpen, KILT-FM, Houston. We do this twice a day – it’s called the 6:10 or 8:10 Amen. The big change we made is what we curate for content. Where a typical show might find a good story and tell their audience about that, we decided to root for whatever good news the listeners have in their lives. They determine the content. We love hearing listener’s voices and stories. The show then celebrates that fan. Which sets us apart from what you usually hear on a feature like this.
This week was a debacle for Taylor Swift fans who were tormented by Ticketmaster. Tons tried, but few got tickets to see her in concert. An imperative image for any show to own is “they’re just like you”. Rooted in authenticity, one of radio’s super powers is to convince the audience that you are just like them. That intimacy (that you are real) helps the bonding process to build a strong relationship. John and Tammy, KSON, San Diego are exactly that. Which is why John tried to get Taylor tickets from Ticketmaster this week, like everyone else. The only difference? John is on the radio so he recorded his mood as he endured the long wait, eventually failing, too. To be like the audience, you must have similar experiences. Living that on-the-air helps your fans know you are just like them!
Thanksgiving is this week, which means everyone will eat everything in sight. Be the Dessert Enablers! Let listeners call and then give them permission to eat as many desserts on Thursday as they’d like. Bonus points if they take pictures of the ones they consumed, which then get posted on your Facebook page.
The holiday season means shopping is in full force. And for local mom-and-pops, what happens this time of year makes or breaks their business. Do Shop Local, Listen Local. Let locally-owned businesses comes on to tell your audience about themselves. Then ask them to listen local – to put your radio station on in their shop so you each can be supportive of the other. If you do this, make sure you offer it to the local clients of the station first.
One of the challenges of a three-person show is that you have two talent of the same gender and need to focus on separating them perceptually. Such is the exercise with The Josie Dye Show with Carlin and Brent, Indie 88, Toronto. Brent’s single and Carlin is getting married is one trait that separates these two male voices to the audience. This breaks does that. We do lots of content talking about Carlin’s fiance and the stories they generate. That’s all on purpose to reach the goal of separating Carlin and Brent’s on-air personas. Carlin went to bed early one night and his fiance, Dani, went out with friends. When she got home, she woke him to boast that she’d been hit on multiple times at the bar. Carlin said that Dani still has “it”. Two things to listen for in this break – a great story that moves Carlin away from Brent’s singleness and the language used in the telling of the story to stand out. Plus, to make the break even better, Dani is included at just the right moment for an additional level of storytelling to keep the audience hooked and the energy level high.
The holidays are here soon and as we approach Christmas, you might be putting together your show’s community service campaign. It’s appropriate, it’s where listeners are, and the alignment is natural that you do something to help your community.
Listeners are stressed about life, frustrated, and looking to join a brand that does good in the community. But I wonder: will you raise money for a charity this year, or will you do something bigger and atypical for a cause important to you to deepen your authenticity and affirm your humanity?
Often, I’ll tune into a radio station that will beg listeners for money, which then gets turned over to a charity. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s always the fear that the charity will get the big win in money, a database of your listeners who gave, and credit for the project.
What’s more impactful to build your brand is to focus on a community service image year-round that envelopes a singular cause. That will show the heart of your talent and be more memorable than just raising money for a charity.
An example. Six years ago, we had this conversation at Indie 88, Toronto. The morning show said that homelessness was their cause. At any given moment in the winter, there are 5000 homeless on the streets of Toronto. The show went to the shelters to talk with the homeless as well as those who’ve dedicated their lives to taking care of them. They heard stories that more deeply impacted the effort. Our show is built around being different. If it smacks of pro forma, we tend to back up and think about it some more. We learned that what homeless people need more than anything else is socks to prevent frostbite.
So, we developed Socks for the Souls. In our first year, the Josie Dye Show with Carlin and Brent asked the audience to send them 10,000 pair of socks. We got over 170,000 which were turned over to the shelters. This year, we will collect our one-millionth pair. Kinda cool. Everything the show does is focused on the homeless and tends to be around socks. The station has a concert this week. The price of admission? Ten pair of socks. We even put an Amazon link on the website so listeners can, with a couple of clicks, send us socks. For just a few dollars if they do it, listeners feel better about themselves and us, we feed a passion for the show, and we make a difference in the community.
At WINK-FM in Fort Myers, FL, their cause is animals. So, we do “Pet Projects” year-round. At Christmas, Logan and Sadie ask listeners to donate dog toys which are then delivered to the shelters, because we aren’t sure if Santa visits animal shelters on Christmas Eve. Or we’re raising money to buy and train a service animal for
a wounded warrior who lives in town. Or we camp out at grocery stores, asking listeners to buy us a bag of pet food we give to the shelters so they can save that money in their budgets. We do a similar campaign at KSLX, Phoenix with Mark and NeanderPaul’s Operation Pets and Vets. Focused, big, different.
Every show I work with has a focused cause, important to them.
Two things to consider: many radio stations will promote everything. If a local charity needs promotion for an event, they’ll do it. The thing I’ve learned is that if you do everything, all for different causes, it adds up to less than if you choose one and center everything around that.
The other item to think about is if you align with a charity, all their imagery transfers to you. If it’s an old, tired charity, you could be perceived that way, too. 
Case in point is Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston. They were approached by the Marines years ago, asking them to raise toys for their Toys for Tots campaign. We re-framed the effort to Karson and Kennedy’s 10,000 Toys for Girls and Boys. Lots of shows do this now, but we were the first. We made it ours, listeners responded positively, we built our own show’s images, and turned everything over to the Marines. A win all the way around because it fed our cause: kids.
We are targeting two groups when we do campaigns like this. The smaller group of fans who’ll help you reach your goal and the much, much larger group who won’t, but whose perceptions you’re positively impacting so they feel even better about you.
It’s easy to do something for a local charity. And they’ll be the big winners if you do. But ask: are you all about the local children’s hospital or the cause of kids? The animal shelters or the cause of pets? The cause of vets? The cause of mental health? The cause of volunteerism? What’s important to you as a human being? Be that.
Be focused. Be big. Be different. Then, you’ll be noticed.
Also, be the beacon. Listeners want to be around brands that show their values and do good for the community. Light the positive path forward for listeners to feel good about their world, their community, their life, and you. Bring them there and they will follow.
Then watch them join your brand more often and fall more deeply in love with you because you’ve shown your humanity. Build the many dimensions of your brand through the passions of your talent. That’s the road to epic.
Here’s a feature I thought would be a total dud that completely surprised me. We decided to take for a test ride How Much Do You Make on Mark and NeanderPaul, KSLX, Phoenix. A listener calls and tells you their profession. The cast then asks all the obvious follow-up questions to gather information about the person and his or her job. They then get to guess at that person’s salary. The caller then reveals it. Parade Magazine has an annual issue where they share what people in certain professions make. This is our version and we were surprised at the number of listeners who felt comfortable participating. It works because you’re getting to know a listener, delving into their life, and asking questions that make it vicarious where other listeners driving into their workplaces are trying to figure out the salary, too.
With Thanksgiving a few weeks away, find the three most fun people in the building and have each of them prepare their version of mashed potatoes like they’d serve at Thanksgiving dinner. On a day before the holiday, have the entire airstaff (or others that you work with) do a blind taste test and then crown your first annual winner of the mashed potato contest. It’ll be fun audio for the show and a great video for your socials.