Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

Jim Williams on Using Demo Tapes to Sell Radio Advertising

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

HIS NAME WAS JIM WILLIAMS. He was radio’s first serious sales trainer. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of radio advertising salespeople across America acquired their unshakeable belief in the power of radio advertising from Jim. By way of introduction, this post is … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Audio Equipment, Client-voiced commercials, Communication, Copy, Copywriting, Grace Broadcast Sales, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Radio Production, Radio Sales Cafe, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling | Tagged ad, Advertising, demo, demonstration, Jim, Radio, sales, tape, training, Williams | Leave a comment

Jelly Bean Branding

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

Betcha didn’t know that April 22nd was Jelly Bean Day. Or that jelly beans have been around since at least the time of the Civil War. As kids, we ate our fill of them every Easter season. Then they’d pretty … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Communication, graphic design, Sales & Marketing | Tagged beans, Belly, branding, candy, dollar, flops, fun, Jelly, snack | Leave a comment

Context Matters

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

Whenever I meet with a new advertising client or prospect, one of the first items of business is to come to a meeting of the minds concerning the singular importance of: The Message. What-the-ad-says has more to do with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Communication, Copy, Copywriting, editor, graphic design, Newspaper, Print, Problem-solving, Professional Services Advertising, Promotions, Proofreading, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling | Tagged Advertising, context, copywriting, editor, magazine, message, Newspaper, print, proofreading | Leave a comment

Is Your Brand a Joke?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

I enjoy a funny story as much as anyone. But not every joke is worth telling, certainly not in all places, at all times. Just because you can tell it doesn’t mean that you should. Context matters, it really does. … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Communication, Copywriting, Print, Professional Services Advertising, Promotions, Sales & Marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged Advertising, branding, context, customer, words | 1 Comment

Best-Selling Wizard of Ads Trilogy…FREE!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

If Roy H. Williams has advertised this elsewhere, I’ve not seen it. But earlier this week, as I was poking around the Wizard’s website, I happened to notice that he’s making available FREE (for how long?) all three of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Communication, Problem-solving, Professional Services Advertising, Promotions, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling, Uncategorized | Tagged Ads, Advertising, Audiobooks, Books, commercials, copywriting, download, free, Radio, Roy, trilogy, Williams, Wizard | 1 Comment

David Ogilvy on Writing and the Spoken Word

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Rod Schwartz

From Brain Pickings… On September 7th, 1982, Ogilvy sent an internal memo to all agency employees, titled “How to Write:” The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well. Woolly minded … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Client-voiced commercials, Communication, Madison Avenue, Ogilvy, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Radio Production, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling, Voice Acting, Voiceover | 1 Comment

“WORD-OF-MOUTH IS MY BEST ADVERTISING.”

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Rod Schwartz

“I don’t need to advertise. I rely on word-of-mouth. My customers tell their friends.” How often have you heard those words? Personal referrals and recommendations are powerful, especially when we’re considering the purchase of a product or service from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Client-voiced commercials, Communication, Problem-solving, Professional Services Advertising, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Radio Production, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling | Tagged Advertising, authentic, cataracts, Commercial, interview, Lasik, Radio, real, stories, story, Storytelling, testimonials, word-of-mouth | 9 Comments

The Charge of the Mosquito

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Rod Schwartz

Mosquitos suck. They’re tiny. They’re irritating. And they’re inevitable. Even if you’re fortunate enough to live in an area where these biting insects aren’t a problem (does such a place exist?), you still face the … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling, Uncategorized | Tagged adversity, anxiety, delay, elephant, inconvenience, mosquito, problem-solving, problems, worry | 1 Comment

RADIO (Still) Gets Results!

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Rod Schwartz

The fact that I retrieved this presentation from a cassette tape tells you something about how long ago I put it together. (Hint: it was before we recorded onto flash memory cards, before we emailed MP3 files, even before we burned CD’s. Seinfeld was … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Branding, Client-voiced commercials, Professional Services Advertising, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Production, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling | Leave a comment

DONT U MAKE THESE MISTAKE’S

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Rod Schwartz

Working in radio does not give us license to trash the English language. After all, we’re supposed to be professional communicators, right? We radio folks may find it easier to hide our misspellings, grammatical and punctuation errors behind a microphone … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising (General), Communication, Professional Services Advertising, Radio Advertising, Radio Commercials, Radio Copywriting, Radio Production, Sales & Marketing, Storytelling | Tagged ad, Advertising, communication, copy, copywriting, English usage, grammar, language, marketing, punctuation, speaking, speech, spelling, writing | Leave a comment