As we work on our email distribution challenge for this blog, I thought I’d continue to blog on the website directly.

Today its an interesting look at Pandora from media guru Mark Kassof.

According to their random phone surveys, “radio’s #1 edge over Pandora is its availability…especially its availability in vehicles.”

“The variety of stations and music is radio’s #2 edge. And radio makes it easy and quick to switch from one station to another.  In general, a number find radio more convenient and easier to use …accessible everywhere, without the internet, PC or phone.”

Last week, I started a blog series on the advancements and offerings being made by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB).

Unfortunately, the email system that sends this blog to you was corrupted and we are in the process of fixing it.

Therefore, this blog is a test to see if problem is fixed.  Then I will re-publish the RAB series becasue it is that important.

Sorry for the problem.

More than once in this blog, I have talked about the changing, no, let me fix that, the CHANGED buyer.

I’ll try to better define that for you today with HOW the buyer has changed and how you need to change as well.

Access To Information

The buyer is now privy to intense amounts of information. They are using this access in more ways than you can name.  Buyers like to explore (mostly through search) their options.  They can read about you, your competition.  Do side by side comparisons at all hours of the day.  In other words, the ‘work of discovery” is already done by the time you enter their office (if you even get that far).

It’s what is called ESTABLISHED DEMAND.  They don’t need you to conduct a needs analysis. They expect you to know this through your own research. Do you think you are the only one asking them “what’s keeping you up at night?”

They know what they want and how much to pay.  We are in an era of commoditization of solutions.

For the business you are losing or is not returning, it is probably because the process has become one of fulfillment-not sales.  If your product is a category leader, lowest priced and super flexible by all means stick by the phone here come the orders. And you don’t really need to read any further.

If not change your sales habits.

Give buyers new ways of looking at THEIR business.  It isn’t FAB (Features, Advantages, Benefits) anymore.  Needs analysis be damned.

Lead your sales visit with a provocative point. Re-frame their view of their industry.  Provide insight with a telling, salient observation you made about their competitive position. Tell them how you saved your client’s money or improved their success ratio in customer retention.

To succeed in sales 2.0 world, you must tailor your pitch and product, teach your customer something while controlling the purchasing process.  And always, always, always make it easy to buy you.

And it is even easier to do if your product does one or more of the following:

1.) Save them money

2.) Help them avoid risk

3.) Break new markets or

4.) Provide new ideas for retaining customers

A colleague forward these EMAIL tips recently.

They originally appeared at Sales Force XP. They seemed worth forwarding.

THE 5 DO’s

Roy Williams the oft-quoted genius in these blogs, says Radio is in the “Customer Delivery” business.

It does not mater how our customers receive the information from us, it’s that Radio continues to supply it through all channels. I believe there is a new way of delivery that must continue to garner the attention of the entire industry.

The champion of this ‘new’ delivery mode is  Jeff Smulyan of Emmis Communications.  He has tiredly persisted in getting FM reception chips in cell phones. This microchip adds no weight and little battery drain to current smart phones for about the cost of a quarter.  He most recently had his first success.

Some argue why don’t we just continue to stream and have cell phones pick us up in Apps the way Pandora does.  Well, we need to do that also and folks like Tune In Radio have done a great job with that tool.

The reason Smulyan’s quest is so important however is soon bandwidth will have a supply and demand problem and the cost will rise.  We are in the hey day of cheap bandwidth in America.  When that runs low, scarce or controlled by the few, the price will skyrocket.  “Free’ music services might no longer be so free.  Therefore, consumers will turn to over the air delivery that is truly free.

You see it already in natural disasters.  Cell towers are overwhelmed in local emergencies and people lack ability to communicate when they need to the most.  Radio and it’s nearly flawless over the air delivery service has proven over and over again, the importance of it’s broadcast signal in communicating urgent messages during natural disasters.

There is some dissension amongst experts about the timetable of more expensive bandwidth; however, few argue it’s coming.  Call it the ‘global warming challenge’ of the tech world.

It’s nice to know that someone, in this case Jeff Smulyan, is looking out for the Radio world.

Tuning in the latest star from the dashboard of my car

cruising at 7 push button heaven

Capturing memories from a far from my car

So tune it right in, everywhere you go

He waved his hand and gave us Rock and Roll

The soundtrack to falling in love

Feel the music in the air

Find a song to take us there

It’s paradise when I lift my antennae

receiving signals like a prayer

Make the night a celebration

SPREAD THE LOVE AND THE SUNSHINE TO A WHOLE NEW GENERATION

–What’s this? Am I feeling all poetic about my passion?  Nope just the lyrics of the first new song from The Beach Boys in years- “That’s Why God Made The Radio”

Happy Sun-drenched, Radio-filled weekend

One of the universal truths of business is Marketing and Sales will bump heads.

According to sales department, marketing people have no clue what is happening out in the street.

According to marketing, if sales would just use the materials they produced, their sales would increase dramatically.

Realizing that not every business has a separate sales and marketing departments it is important that they at least recognize the difference and then look at both sides of the coin to help make sales more efficient by improving their marketing tools.

If the responsibility of preparing sales materials falls in your lap, I have found no better explanation of your role than this 30 minute video.  It is essentially a real life MBA in sales marketing tools.

http://www.brainshark.com/cvi/vu?pi=753042297

Because I work in the Radio industry sometimes people ask me questions they just assume I know the answer to. For example…

How come I can’t pick up my favorite station in my bathroom?

or is Rush Limbaugh gay?

I usually fake an answer like try putting your radio on a towel and well, I’m best to leave that last one unanswered.

But here is something I have been asked that I now can answer.  How much is a hit single worth to the singer?

Well usually very little unless they are the songwriter.  The songwriter gets a generous portion of revenue generated by a song.  In some cases, this causes great friction in a band when only one guy is given songwriting credits, while the rest of the band stays hungry.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes an artist has such tremendous pull and brand awareness with the record company, he or she can garner songwriting credit even if they do very little during the process.

Case in point is Justin Bieber.  He does not write a lot of his music, however,  he usually musters songwriting credit along with the actual writers, because of his stature (Isn’t it funny to refer to a 18-year-old has having stature?).

But getting back to the question.  How much does he make?

Recently Billboard Magazine- the bible of the music industry- published a breakdown of revenue distributions of one of his songs.

Bieber recently released a new song “Boyfriend” on-line for digital sales.

It sold 521,000 downloads in a week (4th best all time). Total gross sales $672,090.

Here is Billboard’s estimates of distribution (the following, they admit, are educated guesses):

Justin Bieber $83,000 (20% royalty plus songwriter’s credit rights)

Apple iTunes $203,190

Producer/Co -writers- $45,000

Publishers $11,800

Def Jam (record label)- $327,700

By comparison, Taylor Swift just performed 10 shows in Australia. Total gross box office: $12,875,000.

Her take about 40%  or $5M.  The money is in the live performance folks.  In case you are wondering why the Rolling Stones are planning another tour.

According to an annual study of the consumer music market in the U.S. by The NPD Group, a leading market research company, online radio is the fastest growing music listening option among U.S. consumers but not at the expense of terrestrial Radio.

In 2011, 43 percent of U.S. Web users chose to listen to music via Pandora, Slacker, Yahoo! Music, and other online radio options, which is 9 percentage points higher than the previous year. At the same time listening to music on AM/FM radio stayed relatively steady (84 percent twice other options) in 2011, as did CD listening (74 percent).

Although consumers are overwhelmingly opting for free ad-supported online radio options, consumers’ conversion to paid versions of online, on-demand radio remains low. While 42 percent of Web users listened to free radio options in 2011, just 3 percent paid to listen to radio online.

Because I work in the Radio industry sometimes people ask me questions they just assume I know the answer to. For example…

How come I can’t pick up my favorite station in my bathroom?

or is Rush Limbaugh gay?

I usually fake an answer like try putting your radio on a towel and well, I’m best to leave that last one unanswered.

But here is something I have been asked that I now can answer.  How much is a hit single worth to the singer?

Well usually very little unless they are the songwriter.  The songwriter gets a generous portion of revenue generated by a song.  In some cases, this causes great friction in a band when only one guy is given songwriting credits, while the rest of the band stays hungry.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes an artist has such tremendous pull and brand awareness with the record company, he or she can garner songwriting credit even if they do very little during the process.

Case in point is Justin Bieber.  He does not write a lot of his music, however,  he usually musters songwriting credi,t along with the actual writers, because of his stature (Isn’t it funny to refer to a 18-year-old has having stature?).

But getting back to the question.  How much does he make?

Recently Billboard Magazine- the bible of the music industry- published a breakdown of revenue distributions of one of his songs.

Bieber recently released a new song “Boyfriend” on-line for digital sales.

It sold 521,000 downloads in a week (4th best all time). Total gross sales $672,090.

Here is Billboard’s estimates of distribution (the following, they admit, are educated guesses):

Justin Bieber $83,000 (20% royalty plus songwriter’s credit rights)

Apple iTunes $203,190

Producer/Co -writers- $45,000

Publishers $11,800

Def Jam (record label)- $327,700

By comparison, Taylor Swift just performed 10 shows in Australia. Total gross box office: $12,875,000.

Her take about 40%  or $5M.  The money is in the live performance folks.  In case you are wondering why the Rolling Stones are planning another tour.