by Guest Blogger, Shannon Cherry
Entrepreneurs and small business owners, like you, often struggle to get free publicity for their products and services. But you can build your credibility and visibility just be talking about what you know. The best part is you don’t need Oprah’s help. You just need to start doing radio interviews. Plus the reality is radio is much easier – and effective.
American terrestrial (that is, non-Internet) radio stations need more than 10,000 guests every single day. And that doesn’t count the thousands of Internet radio stations. Whether online or offline, radio producers are constantly struggling to find interesting guests to interview.
Being a guest on a broadcast radio program can bring increased exposure to your business. Don’t believe me? Well, just ask authors Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, who co-wrote “Chicken Soup For The Soul.” How many books have they sold? More than 80 million.
If you ask them how they did it, they always reply, “We did hundreds of telephone interviews with radio stations across the country. Our sales went through the roof!
According to a recent survey by Statistical Research Inc., 96% of the entire population of the US listens to the radio at least one time a week and 75% listen each day. Although it may be hard to believe, due to radio’s low profile, but more people use the radio than any other media outlet, including TV, newspapers, and the Internet.
And there’s more value being on the radio. Interview time is worth even more than ad time. Why? Because individuals pay extra attention to the shows than the ads — and they’re much more likely to believe them.
Decide for yourself. Are you listening to the interviews or the commercials?
Exactly!
However, don’t take the same approach you would to seek newspaper media coverage when pursuing radio publicity. When it comes to radio exposure, sending a traditional news release will simply get your message thrown away.
That’s because radio is not in the news business; they are in the entertainment business. That’s even true for news/talk radio.
Most stations in this country are owned by a larger company, which owns many – sometimes even hundreds – of radio stations. If they play mostly music, it’s rare to find anyone who handles the news at all.
Radio hosts (commonly known as deejays) often just read news that comes off the wire services, the Internet or local paper. And they certainly don’t have time to rewrite a press release (which is usually written in more newspaper-reading-style) into a 15 to 30 second story to be read out loud.
If there is a news director on board that works on news stories, you’ll often find they are on several stations, reading a 3-minute news broadcast at certain times of the day. Again, he or she is too busy to take the time to find good news stories. They, too, more likely read stories from the wire, or write stories based on what’s on the front page of the local newspaper.
So when you send a traditional news release, it more likely than not won’t be used. And it won’t be forwarded to the decision maker who could see you as a great person to interview.
If you want to use radio to build a powerful presence, you need to tailor your message to radio. No news release in the world can do that!
So what can you send them? I’ll share my secret with you next time…
About the Author:
Shannon Cherry is known as The Power Publicist. She helps small business owners, coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs create a powerful presence using low-cost, high impact publicity methods. To get Shannon’s Be Heard! free publicity power pack visit http://www.beheardsolutions.com
