Mark Ramsey is one of the smartest marketing guy’s in Radio. I do NOT agree with a lot of Marks’ presuppositions about Social Media and how it relates to Radio and its long-term importance in general, but that’s what makes horse races. All that being said, Mark recently posted on markramseymedia.com what I think is a spot-on article dealing with the concept of pre-awareness and how Radio is really, really missing the mark. I mean it, head over there now and read it.

The bottom line is that Radio in general just doesn’t take advantage of and tap into the top-of-mind/pre-awareness the same way other media does, often with great effect. It’s really a damn shame too, because Radio is in an almost exclusive position to take advantage of the immediacy of broadcasting and exploit existing pre-awareness. [click to continue…]

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Back in my morning show radio days, I used to make a one-sheet of all the random and varied stuff I needed to be aware of before I hit the air. I’d chop up the newspaper and tape the important stories of the day together on a piece of blank paper. But the most useful thing I came up with was a prep one-sheet. Essentially a grid with the stuff I needed to be aware of for the day. I made copies of these grid pages and would note the “stuff” i needed to know in categories on the grid. It was, needless to say, very handy. Sure, we’ve got computers and ipads and digital devices up the wazoo today, but having a simple dead tree one-sheet in front of your face is handy as sh*t. Here’s an example of one:

Prep Sheet Example –

Of course the grids could be renamed to any damn thing you want. The concept is obvious. But it’s amazing just how many radio folks have never thought of this simple idea. So, instead of endlessly shuffling through pages, web sites and googling… make yourself a radio prep one-sheet. Or if you’re Word challenged, steal this one.

Blank Prep Sheet Docx –
 

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Google Trends can come in handy to get a quick overview of some of the hot button and/or most popular top of mind trends in your market, state or nationwide. Is this going to replace digging through the news media and just plain old paying attention to what ever the hell people are talking about around you (the best source for topics, by the way). Anyway, lets run through the basics of Google Trends.

First of all…. head over to Google Trends Explore:  http://www.google.com/trends/explore

The splash page will present you with a generic world view trend.

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