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Do What You Do Best & Leave Advertising to Us

Jason_board_2 Some of you know that I do a couple of radio shows here in the Des Moines Market.  The photo on the left is our call screener and board operator Jason Cochran.  Both shows, "Highway 6 - Your Road to the Country" (a rural lifestyle radio show) and "The Iowa Sportsman Radio Hour" (an outdoors show) originate at the same station 98.3 WOW-FM.  The broadcast radius is about 70 miles or so...roughly 750,000 folks in the market.

I enjoy doing radio.  I've been doing either radio or TV in one form or another since I was 17 years old...That was a LONG time ago!

Dsc02341 So, why the background?  Because I want to set the stage for a lesson.  If you use radio (or TV) less is often more when it comes to your produced message.  In other words, you've got 29.5 seconds to get your marketing/sales message out.  Use that time wisely.  The other part of the message is, "Your job is to make the product or service, our job is to help you make it great."

Here is a story about a national company that doesn't get it.  I'm trying to help.

The company, Hoyt, is a major manufacturer of bow-hunting equipment.  They are located in Utah.  These folks really know how to make superior bow hunting equipment.  World class stuff!  But, they, it seems, don't have a clue regarding "how" to market using the broadcast medium.

Time They have a co-op program for radio.  So there is an "official" or "Pre-Approved Radio Script".  It says it is for 'thirty-seconds".  However there are (without putting in dealer names and addresses) 82 words in the script.  Along with this line: "...innovative Stealthshot String Suppression System and much more!"  Go ahead, try to say that within two seconds.  The words tend to get mangled pretty well...and wouldn't you think that the main point of the entire ad should be carefully spoken?

There are way too many words and not enough time.  I tried to ask them about this.  I called Hoyt and asked for the person whose name is on the radio script.  However, Dave no longer works there.  I then left a message with another person in their marketing department.  That was over a week ago.  Kevin never returned my call.

Here is the bottom line:  Folks who make world class products or provide world class service don't always know how to market the products or services they produce.  Often they think that by employing an "in-house" advertising agency they are saving money and getting things done "the way they want".  But in the end...it costs more.

We're not looking to take over Kevin's job or the Hoyt account.  Not interested.  We want to share with folks who are reading this blog to know the difference between creating products and services and then having the ability to market and advertise them.  It ain't the same thing.

Michael P. Libbie - Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications where we need to disclose that most of us have failed the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Class.

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