Here at Simplicity Lone Beacon, we’re always looking for unique, beachfront opportunities to get our advisors a bigger share of voice on their radio stations. With our founders’ years of experience in the broadcast industry, we can identity and recommend opportunities others wouldn’t even know to look for. An example of this includes what we call a “2 Minute Feature”. The majority of commercials running on radio are 30 or 60 seconds long. We knew that a 2-minute long spot would automatically stand out and grab listener’s attention in a different way. We also knew that it would give the advisor enough time to cover a topic more complicated than what would fit in a standard 60 second format.
We produced the features to purposely stand out from typical advertisements and instead sound like a feature from the radio station itself. Our talented Director of Production Pete Gustin, the official voice of Fox News, voiced an open and a close overlaid with music which introduced the advisor. The meat of the feature wasn’t so much a sales pitch as it was a story or lesson that could make an emotional connection with the audience or educate them about a topic relevant to them. Our advisor talked about common issues among retirees like the question of whether to move to a smaller house, the concern of running out of money later in retirement, and how they can lower their tax burden.
These “super spots” worked to establish our advisor’s brand and build a relationship with his audience. They ran at a specific time each day during primetime, so reach and frequency were high. Since they ran at a consistent time, we were able to architect a series of features on the same overall topic to create a storyline effect. It’s important to note that these weren’t a replacement for our advisor’s full-length show, but rather a well-thought out addition to his over-all broadcast marketing strategy . The 2-minute features had the potential to get more reach during weekday primetime than an hour-long show on the weekends, and accelerated the way an audience connected to the advisor’s brand.
Here at Simplicity Lone Beacon, we’re always considering outside-the-box offerings across all platforms for our advisors. We believe that these two-minute features paired with a regular full-length radio show were successful in differentiating our client on the air and getting him a bigger share of voice on his station. There’s a lot to know about the ins and outs of being on the air, and there are many misconceptions. For some examples, read our blog 5 Myths Debunked for the Financial Advisor.
