I had a good friend at a radio station in Illinois writes “The client wishes to no longer advertise on our station because they are not getting a good response – but they love our production and want us to produce spots for them to use on other stations, possibly in other markets as well. ”

Oh Really?  For some reason this is not sitting well in my stomach.  At this point it’s upt to this stations AE to ask some hard and pointed questions.

• How are you tracking your response? Specifically. Which method?
• Are you tracking sales? Traffic?

As stated in a handy pamphlet from GBI called “Tracking Advertising Results”,  advertising will affect 10 areas of your business.  Are you tracking:

1. Number of Walk-In Patrons?
2. Percent of Patrons Purchasing?
3. Gross Sales?
4. Numbers of Sales?
5. Average Sales Per Patron?
6. Number of Advertised Items Sold?
7. Gross Dollars from Advertised Items Sold?
8. Number of Non-Advertised Items Sold?
9. Gross Dollars of Non-Advertised Items Sold?
10. Number of Items per Customer?

Next, I would personally examine the schedule he’s running. Is he running one spot per day at midnight? Is he running three spots per day between 5am and 7pm in a hot product category?

If you’ve got sales management that intends to let this fish go, they have a reason. Either they feel he isn’t worth it or they haven’t figured out a way to talk him into staying on the air with you.

Find out what the reason is. If the client is more trouble than he is worth, then ask the station to walk away. Explain to them how much time you’ll be investing to help this one guy. If he likes your production, he may come to you personally. OR maybe he’ll agree to stay on the air in exchange for receiving your service.

Just some random thoughts for you.

Justin Kaiser
Creative Identity Group