Eight
Easy Ideas To Improve Your Copywriting And Production
Most‚ if not all‚
small to medium market radio stations don’t have the luxury of having a
copywriter on staff. That means it is often the sales staff that must write
commercial copy. Due to small budgets, that’s understandable.
But‚ is the copy that’s
being written actually beneficial to the client? Are your salespeople coming
back with notes from the client on what they want in their copy and then just
plugging in those points into a cookie cutter commercial? Are your salespeople
digging through their files and just pulling out an old piece of copy from ten
years ago and making minor adjustments? Or, are they taking the time to write
a quality commercial that will be a benefit to the client?
We all need to stand up
for better radio‚ and that includes your salespeople. While the programming
staff makes sure the music‚ DJs‚ liners and jingles sound good on
the air‚ is anyone concerned about what is going on in your commercial
breaks?
I have found that salespeople
often accept poor radio copy just to make their clients happy. This‚ though‚
can actually hurt a client. Better copy and a quality commercial will be better
for the client in the long run‚ because it will bring business into the
store. It’s a proven fact that radio commercials are seen as a negative
by most listeners‚ so why bombard them with poorly written and poorly produced
commercials? You’re just asking for listener tune out. People will not
hear that commercial and then your client will wonder why his/her advertising
is not working.
Here are eight tips on how
to improve the commercial copy on your radio station.
- Try to avoid having
clients record their own commercials. Sure, it’s an ego stroke for the
client. They get to hear their voice on the air, and people tell them that
they heard the commercial. Is it effective advertising, though? Sometimes
it is. It helps if there is something unique or different about the client.
Maybe the client has a unique accent that helps get the message across or
has a different way of turning a phrase that can be humorous. Here's a horror
story about client’s voicing their own commercials. At one station I
worked at, this salesperson took a small, non-broadcast quality cassette recorder
to his client so that the client could record his own commercial in his office
on his own time. The finished product sounded awful. You could hear the rustling
of the microphone as he read the copy. The client, with no direction, was
reading-the-copy-just-like-a-school-kid-learning-to-read. There were no inflections
and no energy. There are times where a client should and can record his/her
own commercial, but if it’s only so that his/her ego gets stroked, that’s
the wrong reason. People will say they heard the commercial, but chances are,
they didn’t hear the message.
- Avoid writing creative
mutli-voiced conversational commercials if you don’t have the voice talent
to get them produced correctly and effectively. These type of commercials
have to be believable. Don’t just do them for the sake of doing them.
How often do you hear a commercial with a married couple in it and the people
recording it are the 40 year old receptionist and 17 year old night guy? Is
it really believable? Often it is whoever is available that ends up recording
the commercial. Production people often don’t take into account what
the commercial should really sound like. Most radio people are not actors
and shouldn’t attempt to portray them on the radio. When copy is written,
consideration should made as to the talent available to record it.
- When writing and
producing creative multi-voiced conversational commercials, as a general rule,
do not have the characters read the pertinent copy information like hours,
location, etc. How many times have you had a conversation with a friend and
said, “I bought my car at Joe’s Automotive at 313 North State Street
where they're open everyday from 8 to 5.” If it is a conversational commercial,
make sure your characters sound like they’re having a real world conversation.
Have an announcer give the pertinent information in a tag at the end.
- Never have
one of your announcers or staff read a commercial in first person. The exception
is if they are a paid spokesperson for the client. Your announcers have familiar
voices and to record a commercial in first person makes it sound like they
work for the client.
- Avoid using the word
“come,” like “come see their showroom today,” or “come
in today.” That also gives the impression that the announcer is there
(at the client’s). A suggestion is to use “visit,” like “visit
their showroom today,” or “visit them today.”
- Have your announcers
pre read the copy. Write out pronunciations, even if it’s obvious. If
it needs an explanation, then give one. Don’t assume they will know what
you mean. If you want something read a certain way, make a notation or see
the announcer and explain it personally. Some announcers just read what is
placed in front of them and they don’t really think about what they are
talking about (or selling). At one station on two different occasions with
two different announcers who didn’t know each other (they didn’t
work there at the same time), a simple word was mispronounced when just looking
at the word in context would have corrected the problem. The commercial was
for a phone book cover, and the copy read, “...now you can protect your
phone book with a bright new vinyl phone book cover that will keep it free
of tears, stains and dirt.” The word “tears” was pronounced
like the word that means the stuff that comes from your eyes when you cry
and not like the word that means “rip.”
- What about those
dreaded phone numbers? Are they popping up in all your radio commercials?
How many times have you heard the phone number rattled off just to fill up
time. Most people don’t have a pad and pencil with them at all times
to write the number down. Management and Sales Consultant BIG Mike McDaniel
wrote a great article on this subject. Read
the article here.
- Are you falling into
the habit of using a lot of commercial clichés in your copy? Let’s
be creative and find a new way to say something that’s been said a thousand
times. The one that really irritates me is, “...for all your (insert
service or product here) needs...” Enjoy a good laugh and check out this
article written by Dan O' Day about those awful clichés. Read
the article here at www.danoday.com.
Just remember that the client
is not always right. We are the radio professionals and we know our business
better than anyone else. We need to stand up for better radio and take the time
and make the effort to get the job done right. Make the client’s advertising
effective with a well written, quality produced radio commercial.
All the elements that make
up a radio station need to sound good and that includes the commercials.
If you have any questions
or comments about this article, please e-mail me.
This
article was also published on the All Access Music Group Web site (www.allaccess.com)
in January 2002
and
the FreeRadioTips e-mail newsletter and Web site(www.freeradiotips.com) in June
2002.
©
2001 Peter J. Oleshchuk
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