This book is the bible for growing America’s small business success through the effective use of radio advertising. It was written for advertiser reading. It speaks to your advertising client.

More than four decades of listening to advertisers of all sizes in all size markets has provided most of the empirical data for this book. Experience, observation and evaluation in developing strategies, creating campaigns, identifying and targeting a client’s most profitable customers, budgeting, effective on-air scheduling, and preparing radio ads that work have contributed to the writing of this book.

The success of thousands of advertisers who have believed in and used the Warner Concepts has validated and proven the information in this book.

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“I’m a reader and when you sent me the book, David Can Still Beat Goliath, I thought to myself I’m going to read this book…and I read the book from cover to cover. The more I thought about the message in that book, the more I thought that’s what I need to do for my business. It is in reading that book where I started getting a better understanding of the difference between advertising and marketing.”

—Fredd J. Haas, Personal Injury Attorney, Des Moines, IA

“I read Norton’s book and I just thought this is just such a simple concept. It really is a simple concept and I think people are afraid. For one, they have never been taught about marketing, and the second thing is, if I throw a lot of money out it is going to produce something, but not necessarily. People are wasting money and it is just unbelievable to me. We wasted a lot of money.”

—Dr. Sandra Miller, Associated Hearing, Lincoln, NE

The book, David Can Still Beat Goliath, provides the curriculum for the eighteen short and concise videos in the Marketing Bridge Club mini-seminars.

This book is an excellent advertiser incentive when provided free by the station for attending the Marketing Bridge Club mini-seminars. It also serves as a detailed reference guide for RAP Webucation graduates. To discuss getting on board with the Marketing Bridge Club, or for information on taking the RAP Webucation course, call Norton Warner at 402-944-2655 or e-mail.

Table of Contents

If our advertisers knew what we know about how to use the power of radio advertising, they would invest all or a major share of their budgets in radio. As you read these chapter summaries keep in mind the book was written for your advertising clients.

Chapter I – David Can Win!

“If radio were invented today, it would be considered nothing less than a wonder medium.”

In today’s marketplace, where the ‘Davids’ are doing battle with the ‘Goliaths’ every day for the consumer dollar, it is important that marketing and advertising strategies and campaigns are targeted, efficient and effective. Radio, if used properly, is the weapon of choice to get the job done.

This chapter includes a discussion of the problems associated with the use of radio because of the lack of understanding on how to harness the power of this medium. Other topics covered are overviews on proper expectations and waste in advertising.

You will be encouraged to become your own expert. You will be challenged to give up those emotional attachments to the past that may lead to your failure. In doing so, you can set your own course with confidence.

“If you practice the fundamentals of advertising effectiveness, you can go forth in faith.”

Chapter II – The Battlefield

“Capture the mind and you capture the pocketbook.”

This chapter discusses capturing the mind of the consumer in order to make a sale. You will learn the process through which consumers make their buying decisions and how you can become part of that process.

Discover how to assess your business – your vitality, merchandising, strengths & weaknesses and advertising – in order to create and maintain your customer base.

Find out the key to memory and how to use advertising to keep your business and its innovations at the top of the consumer’s mind.

Chapter III – Winning with Radio

“Dollar for dollar, radio is the most powerful and effective advertising medium in the world today – if it is used properly.”

“If it is used properly” is the key phrase. Radio is the most misunderstood of all media. This chapter makes this mystery of radio clearer by introducing the ‘Radio Chain of Effectiveness’, explaining the elements necessary for radio advertising to work for you.

Find the answers to the following questions:

• How do I choose a radio station?
• Why is reach and frequency so important to my business?
• What is the definition of ‘consistency’ in advertising?
• How do I decide what to say in my ads?
• What should my expectations be concerning my advertising?

Chapter IV – Radio, The Weapon

This chapter delves further into the power of radio by making you aware of six characteristics that are unique to radio. No other ad medium offers this combination. Radio is able to:

• Target an audience by age and lifestyle
• Intrude and engage the consumer’s mind
• Deliver effective reach and frequency with any size budget
• Attract and keep a loyal audience
• Tell your total value story
• Create a consumer preference or trust

Learn why these characteristics, in combination, are important to the success of your business.

“When your advertising strategy and ad campaign are planned to take advantage of radio’s unique combination of strengths and additional characteristics just covered, it can become the only weapon you’ll need to win your battle with Goliath.”

Chapter V – Winning Strategy

“To create a winning strategy, your must learn everything you can about your competition, your own enterprise, and your most profitable customer. In marketing and advertising the proper analysis of this knowledge is a source of power.”

This chapter is designed to challenge you to assess your business, your competitor and your customer. In doing so, you will be able to build a solid, effective advertising and marketing strategy.

Some questions discussed are:

• What innovations do you bring to the marketplace?
• What are your business objectives and goals?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What are competitor’s goals?
• What are your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?
• What are your competitor’s marketing and advertising strategies?
• Who is your customer?
• How are buying decisions made?
• How does your advertising and marketing get into the mind of your prospective customer?

Chapter VI – The Campaign

“An effective advertising campaign requires that you be specific about what you are trying to accomplish. The clearer your vision of the desired end result for your campaign, the easier it becomes to develop your campaign and measure its effectiveness.”

Assess what you want to accomplish

• What is the desired outcome of your advertising campaign?
• What do you want prospective customers to know about your product or service?
• How do you want consumers to think or feel about your business?

This section of Chapter 6 encourages you to write down your advertising objectives. There are nineteen (19) examples to get you thinking about your own goals.

You will also learn the differences between value story and promotional advertising and the importance of consistency in advertising. This knowledge will become essential in your quest for effectiveness in your advertising.

Chapter VI – The Campaign: Targeting Your Most Profitable Customer

Once you have identified your most profitable customer, which radio station or stations will serve you best?

In this section, you will discover:

• The difference between psychographics and demographics and what this means to you
• How the Arbitron ratings service really works giving you the knowledge you need to help you choose the station for you
• Eight things to look for in a radio station
• What to avoid

“All ‘sets of ears’ are not equal at the cash register.”

Chapter VI – The Campaign: Effective Scheduling

When are the ‘best times’ to schedule your ads? This section provides for you a proven system of on-air scheduling to assure reach and frequency on your most profitable customer.

Three major considerations:

• Planned Fixed Position scheduling to assure that your on-air sales calls reach the total audience of the radio station with frequency
• Value story and promotional advertising scheduling to assure an effective ad campaign
• Coincide on-air scheduling with consumer buying decisions and purchasing patterns to assure timely and relevant radio sales calls

These three items will be discussed in detail. This information will give you the knowledge to schedule your own radio ads with confidence.

“PFP scheduling achieves maximum reach and activates the medium’s greatest strengths – intrusiveness, audience loyalty, and frequency of exposure.”

Chapter VI – The Campaign: The Message Is Everything

“Your message is critical to your advertising. It’s been said that 90 percent of advertising’s power lies in what is said.

In this section, you will learn the formula for writing your radio ads that will effectively communicate compelling reasons for consumers to do business with you.

Other topics include:

• The differences between image, institutional, and category advertising
• Whether to run 30- or 60-second ads
• The truth about 10-second ads
• The power of testimonials
• How production elements may detract from the effectiveness of your ads

“The weapon is radio, the ammunition is the message and too many advertisers are firing blanks.”

Chapter VI – The Campaign: The Budget

“The budgeting process reflects your strategy, knowledge, attitude and personality.”

This section will give you guidelines, definitions and advice on how to think about and create an advertising budget that fits your business style.

Since advertising probably should be referred to as “media budget”, the handling of non-media expenditures is discussed, as well.

Chapter VI – The Campaign: Concentrate Your Forces

It is more effective to “Put all your eggs in one basket and make sure no one kicks it over”.

This section discusses the importance of concentrating your budget for maximum firepower.

You will learn the difference between “media mix” and fragmentation and the impact of each on your advertising effectiveness.

Other discussions include focusing your energies on whom you are reaching instead of whom you are missing and the power of the “center-of-influence multiplier” created by your radio advertising.

Chapter VI – The Campaign: The Service Plan

“For your entrepreneurial dreams to come true, both you and your sales rep must work as a team.”

Your service plan is a road map that you and your sales rep will follow in order to accomplish your campaign objectives. This section discusses the attitudes and expectations that are necessary for a successful service plan.

You will discover what you should expect from a good sales rep and what your sales rep will expect from you. Other topics discussed include accountability and buyer’s remorse.

The service plan is part of the partnership created between you and your radio station(s) of choice and is critical to your success.

Chapter VI – The Campaign: Winning With a Limited Budget

“You can advertise with effective reach and frequency even if yours is a small enterprise with a very limited budget.”

This section discusses the keys to small-budget radio advertising. These keys are a set of instructions on the proper use of radio including budget considerations and how to schedule effectively to insure maximum firepower.

You will also read two testimonials from small business owners who have used these concepts and have been very successful.

Chapter VI – The Campaign: The On-Location Broadcast

“The on-location broadcast is not the event; it only spotlights the occasion.”

The On-location or Live broadcast is a powerful promotional weapon that is unique to radio. However, as with everything else, there is a right way and a wrong way to execute these broadcasts.

You will learn how a live broadcast affects your entire promotional event, the importance of pre-sell ads, how to use radio personalities to help create sizzle and how to measure the effectiveness of the broadcast.

Chapter VII – Success is an Inside Job

“Business owners’ attitudes toward customers, clients, or patients are the keys to the business’s success.”

This chapter discusses the attitudes and belief systems that must exist in your organization in order to achieve success.

Topics include:

• How much your customer is worth
• Building your team for retaining lifetime customers
• How advertising is measured based on your internal systems

Chapter VIII – Are You Winning?

The answer to the question, “Are you winning?” as it relates to your advertising, can be elusive. However, there are ways to examine and determine the success or failure of your advertising investment.

In this chapter, you will discover that your expectations dictate how you measure the effectiveness of your advertising. You will also learn of external factors that may cloud your judgment concerning this measurement.

Topics include:

• Four ways to measure the effectiveness of your ad campaign
• Incorrect expectations put forth by uneducated and over-zealous sales reps
• Traceability
• The trouble with surveys
• Feedback loops that may present a distorted picture of the success of your advertising

“Victory on the battlefield of the customer’s mind is a journey – not a destination.”

Chapter IX – Transcending Conventional Advertising

“Advertising is not a dirty word.”

In today’s competitive marketplace, it is important for professional practices and non-profits to “get the word out.”

This chapter discusses how radio can be used to create an affinity for an enterprise. By conveying information that would be perceived as a service to the public or education, professionals can either maintain their position or create a new awareness in order to attract clients or patients.

“You can actively market your professional services and still maintain your dignity and command respect for your profession.”

Chapter X – Alternative Weapons

“Each ad medium is different and performs a different advertising and marketing function.”

In order to make an informed decision on which media to buy, it is imperative to know how each medium works.

This chapter discusses the differences among media – Newspaper, television/cable, billboards, direct mail & yellow pages.

Other topics include:

• The move towards targeting based on lifestyle or ‘psychographics’ rather than age or ‘demographics.’
• Intrusive vs. passive media
• Consumer blind spots
• The effectiveness of coupons
• The Internet
• “Word of Mouth” – Is it advertising?

Chapter XI – Misleading Self-Promotion

“Self-promotion claims are self-serving and often exaggerated. A false or misleading claim, unconfirmed or unsubstantiated, becomes ‘the truth’. Before selecting ad media based on self-promotion claims, you should investigate, verify, confirm and seek the truth.”

This chapter discusses how media employ misleading promotion in order to get you to invest your advertising dollars with them.

The purpose is to make you aware of these inaccurate claims to better assist you with your decision(s) on which ad medium is best suited to help you reach your goals.

One actual newspaper ad and an excerpt of a yellow pages ad are examined line-by-line to show the fallacies of such media self-promotion.

Chapter XII – The Sword of Self-Destruction

“Radio stations commit marketing suicide by advertising their audience numbers in various print media.”

Radio stations rely, heavily, on listener surveys, such as Arbitron, for self-promotion.

In this chapter, you’ll become aware of how radio “shoots itself in the foot” by promoting the results of these surveys. While these surveys are important, they can be confusing and misleading. In addition, newspapers love it when radio stations promote their survey numbers. It gives the newspapers the ‘sword’ with which to fight the battle for the advertising dollar.

The ‘truth’ of ratings surveys and the power of radio are reinforced by examining a newspaper ad that simply states listener figures of 11 radio stations in a given market.

Chapter XIII – Go Forth In Faith

“It is your vision, your creative imagination, your ability to sense which way to go at the fork in the road that leads to success.”

This final chapter gives you the confidence to move forward with your new- found knowledge of marketing and advertising. It also reinforces how important it is for you to become your own expert and encourages you to “examine, analyze and think” about everything you read and hear about advertising.

Topics Include:

• A summary of how radio sabotages itself causing confusion about the effectiveness of radio as an ad medium
• The untruths told by so-called advertising experts
• An introduction to the video program entitled “The Eye vs. The Ear” – A presentation that relates the difference between seeing and hearing and how this difference might affect your advertising media decisions.
• Judgment that causes you to lock out creativity and the possibilities that come with it.

 “Go boldly with confidence, and it’s just a matter of time until you reach your vision. Proceed toward your goals armed with a slingshot and the faith that you, David, can still beat Goliath.”