Yearly Archives: 2006

Radio Station Strategy

Netradio My buddy Walt Koschnitzke posted a story yesterday on ASB about a new internet radio device that will use Wi-Fi and be able to pick up thousands of internet radio stations. When you couple it with the advent of regional broadband access, it will likely be bigger than XM and Sirius in terms of changing the way we listen at home and in our cars.

So, what’s a local radio station to do? In the very small markets, the station’s lament has always been that the FCC only gave us one AM and one FM license. How will I possibly compete?

Here’s my suggestion: Audio servers don’t cost near as much as FM transmitters, lawyers and engineers. Buy more audio servers. Keep broadcasting your mainstream formats and then start integrating your locally-produced content into niche format internet-only streams.

If I prefer classic country, but I like hearing local news and weather, you could produce such a stream and insert local ads as well. It’s a new revenue stream that’s just an upsell to your existing advertisers. You should also be able to measure it more accurately than your broadcast stations. You should be able to get incremental revenue out of your advertisers on a cost-per-listener basis. Use the adwords model and charge just a few cents per listener. What advertiser would refuse? 

How about a stream that just re-plays your local sports broadcasts? Edit them down to eliminate half-time and excessive time-outs and insert local sponsorships (these can even be different sponsors than on the original broadcast).

If you stick to your locally produced content and locally produced commercials, you also eliminate the sticky mess of union agreements on the talent side of the national ads.

The Art of Transparency

Can I trust you? Will you do the right thing if something bad happens?

Forest_poster I wish I had a dozen more clients like Houston photographer Aric Hoek. First off, he’s a brilliant photographer and a really nice guy. When Roy H. Williams first saw Aric’s work, he spontaneously said, "You’re the master of shadows." Aric liked that. He’s been using it ever since and it’s true.

Aric put up a blog post today that really tells a great story about what kind of business he operates. As a one-man-brand and a wedding photographer, he can only sell his services to one customer on a given wedding day. He needs policies to protect himself …too many cancellations and he’s out of business. But, he has the empathy to recognize that he can also serve his customers when things go wrong.

Go read his post and tell me if you don’t agree. Oh, and be sure to have a look at his work. Aric uses his blog as a tool of transparency. You can read about how he decides to offer a new product line, or how he plans his week. Spend a few minutes reading his writing and you’ll quickly decide whether you want him at your wedding or taking pictures of your family.

Disclaimer: Aric is a client of mine and he is building a business with very little advertising money. He is unbelievably committed both to creating photographs that are worthy of word of mouth and to using viral marketing such as his blog which will speed up the process. I wish I could take credit for what a nice guy he is, but I think his parents deserve that.

This post was originally published on American Small Business.

How to Improve your "About Us" and "Contact Us" Pages

(This has been one of the top stories on American Small Business for several months. So, I’m stealing my own story and sharing it here.)

Best-selling author Bryan Eisenberg has been dishing out super advice over at ClickZ for nearly 5 years now. If you will take the time to read all 239 of his articles, you’ll be way ahead of most.

The two most recent articles talk about two very important pages on your site, but pages that usually get only a cursory effort from most site developers. Your "About Us" (read the article) page is a key source of confidence for many of your customers (many could care less).

An "About Us" page is a tremendous opportunity to cement a relationship with many prospective customers. It can put a human face on an otherwise technical, dry, and impersonal page. Properly written, it can provide some serious buying resolve to certain customer segments.

Your "Contact Us" (read the article) page is equally as important. People want to know how to reach you when there’s a problem…or if they want to compliment you! Bryan gives some great examples of companies doing it right and companies doing it wrong. He wraps it up with this:

The "contact us" page is a lifeline for many businesses. For others, it’s what a visitor should click on as a last resort because she’s failed to find answers elsewhere on your site. Either way, take the responsibility. Make sure visitors don’t become frustrated before they reach out. In the end, that’s the key measure of a good "contact us" page.