Problem… solution.

It’s the very first lesson in the very first class in very first college marketing course.  It should also be at the heart of every station’s design.

What problem are we solving?  

Oh, the irony!  In the one format that addresses life’s biggest questions the day-to-day programming decisions we make often result in our stations becoming less familiar and less intertwined in our listeners’ lives.   When we play that song they’ve never heard, when we talk about that thing that isn’t relevant, when we put our own agenda ahead of theirs…

“Behavior beats to the drum of habit.  And the ritual of habit orbits around the principles of familiarity and simplicity…

Familiarity doesn’t just breed preference, familiarity IS preference.”
~Mark Ramsey

Everyone’s favorite radio station is the station that plays their favorite music.  In a format where the biggest barrier for growth is that most didn’t grow up listening to it,  I wonder how our stations could be transformed if, with every decision, we simply asked, “How will this make our station more familiar to the very people we’re trying to connect with?”

When we play an unfamiliar song, how can we put it in a context that relates to their lives?

When we talk about something they don’t know, how do we frame it from a “Me, too” perspective?

When we do ‘our agenda,’ how do we share in a way that connects to their hopes and dreams?

“If you define the problem correctly you almost have the solution.”
~Steve Jobs