How To Get "Radio-Active" PR For Your Non-Profit Cause-Part One

By Michael Levine
Posted Sunday, February 13, 2005

"We are in the communications business, the business of conveying messages to the human brain," said the late David Sarnoff, founder and president of RCA. "No man is wise enough to know which avenue to the brain is best. Therefore, the sensible idea is to make all avenues available for carrying the message."

In short, a sophisticated promotional effort, even for the most fledgling charity organization must target the electronic media to effectively reach the audience you want as contributors and volunteers. This article will show you how to tap into the great world of radio.

UNDERSTANDING THE MEDIUM OF RADIO

Radio is the oldest of the electronic media, and it has a number of characteristics that are important to understand if you want to use radio properly in your promotional campaigns.

First, radio is the medium that brings you closest to your audience. Radio can make you feel like you're having a chat with millions of listeners, just as President Franklin Roosevelt had his famous "fireside chats" with the nation, via radio, during the Depression. For listeners, radio calls the senses into active involvement with the message to a degree that television doesn't. The mind's eye goes to work, creating images to go along with the inflection of the voice on the radio and the pictures painted by the words. Old-time radio dramas and comedies had that effect, con, luring up vivid pictures in the minds of families gathered around "the wireless."

The possibilities for you and your charity to give mental pictures to your audience, and to capture their interest in deep and probing ways, is powerful.

I speak with experience on the ability of radio to link speaker and listener. I do a weekly radio commentary on KFWB, an all-news station in Los Angeles, and I am a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country. I am also frequently interviewed national and local radio-news people for comments on Hollywood culture, the media, and marketing and publicity.

The response I get from people who hear me over the radio airwaves is quite extraordinary. Invariably I find people grappling with the content of my comments far more when they've heard me over the radio than when they've seen me say something on television. A listener who has heard me on the radio will typically ask me to explain, elaborate, or provide justification for some point I made. In contrast, people who have seen me on TV are more likely to give me a simple comment, such as "I saw you on TV!" without pursuing any issue or stance I may have taken on the television show.

Second, radio is a fast medium, allowing you to get out a message quickly. While it took five months to get word back to Queen Isabella about the voyage of Columbus, and two weeks for Europe to hear about Lincoln's assassination, it took only 1.3 seconds to get the word from Neil Armstrong that a person could walk on the moon. Today, it takes less than thirty seconds to let the world know about anything, from the latest turn in Middle Eastern diplomacy, to a report that Madonna had her baby. The speed of radio is useful to keep in mind whenever you have a timely announcement that you believe you must get across quickly.

Third, radio is still largely unfiltered, allowing ideas to be tested and tossed around in robust debate. While some of the hosts and callers of talk radio sensationalize their messages, or are pure-and-simple wacky, radio at its best offers a modern-day equivalent of the old town-hall gatherings, where everyone is free to give vent to their opinions and complaints and the marketplace of ideas is at its most vibrant. This can be useful for charities and nonprofits that can benefit by tapping into the collective social conscience of a community through discussion and debate.

Finally, radio is still a regulated medium that is supposed to carry a modicum of public-interest fare. According to the Communications Act of 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is empowered to issue radio- broadcasting licenses "if public convenience, interest, or necessity will be served."

Although these words are interpreted very broadly today, many radio stations see themselves as having a social responsibility to broadcast interviews, feature stories, and public-service announcements (PSA'S) designed to promote local charitable ventures. This is obviously a significant advantage for charities and nonprofit groups.

DESIGNING YOUR RADIO STRATEGY

Tapping into your local radio network is actually not difficult. The first step is to become familiar with the radio stations in your area. Which ones have public-interest segments or programming themes that are compatible with the message you're trying to get out?

The only way to discover which stations are best for you is to systematically listen to every station in your community. To save time, a good approach is to apportion out the listening task among many members of your organization. Each person can be assigned a few stations to listen to and report on. I recommend that you listen to each station over the course of a week, studying and getting familiar with their announcers, their style and type of programming, and the audience they appeal to.

After listening to the stations, begin making contact with the program manager at each station. Begin by calling the stations and asking for the program manager's name. Then write a letter to the person, asking about the station's policies on feature programs, special interviews, and public- information spots to profile a charity such as yours.

In most cases, you will receive a reply letter spelling out the policies. Pay close attention to every point and nuance that the manager includes in the letter you get back, because if you submit material for use by the radio station, it must comply in form with any rules or parameters that the station has given you. For example, you can't expect station personnel to rewrite a press release or a public-service announcement that is longer than station rules dictate. You must take note of those rules from the outset, and make sure any announcement you send the station abides by them.

When checking out radio stations, don't be put off by a radio station's emphasis, whether it is an all-music or mostly-music format, or all-news. All of these formats potentially provide some opportunity for a charity to get its message broadcast. Even all music or all-sports formats often make space for spot announcements during breaks for advertising.

To improve your chances of being of interest to a station, you must therefore be closely in tune with the station's audience. You need to figure out their interests, their age ranges and demographics, so you can make your pitch in language that they can relate to and with examples that draw them in. If it's a sports-oriented station, for example, sports analogies would make sense.

Look for the second part of this article, next week.

About the Author
Michael Levine is the founder of the prominent public relations firm Levine Communications Office, based in Los Angeles. He is the author of Guerrilla PR, 7 Life Lessons from Noah�s Ark: How to Survive a Flood in Your Own Life.
GuerrillaPR.net is a resource for people that want to get famous in the media, without going broke. (http://GuerrillaPR.net) Michael@guerrillaPR.net