• If you hire a PR firm, let it do its job.
• Go ahead and make waves – get noticed!
• Never believe ‘no one’s interested in you.’

The guys I know are all looking forward to The Three Stooges remake opening in theaters this weekend. They think Moe, Larry and Curly’s harebrained schemes, silly missteps, and thwacks, smacks and blindside attacks are hysterically funny.

Heck, I don’t need to go to the movies for slapstick – I’ve got men in my life!  (Kidding, of course.)

Everyone – yes, women, too – can be a stooge now and then. Lifelong “Stooges” fan Alex Hinojosa, our senior campaign manager at EMSI, says if you watch enough of their films, you start seeing their personalities in the people you meet. And just like on the big screen, the Moes, Larrys and Curlys of the world get themselves into loads of trouble. It happens all the time with PR.

The Moe: He’s the client who knows everything. (So why on earth did he hire PR professionals?) Moe will bark and bang and bully to get things done his (or her) way even though he’s never coordinated a media campaign, never worked in radio, TV or newspapers and doesn’t know a tweet from a twit.

He’s the client who insists on rewriting his media pitches because he thinks they should be longer and more detailed. (Succinct communications are what catch the attention of busy journalists and show hosts, but he disagrees.) He insists his angle is much more likely to interest a talk show host, even though he’s never hosted a talk show. Would you perform surgery on yourself? Moe would! And, with disastrous results!

If you’re going to be a Moe, at least get a better haircut.

The Larry: Easygoing and passive, he doesn’t want to stir up controversy or offend anyone. No matter what the medium, he insists on appealing only to audiences and show hosts that already agree with his message, so he misses out on the opportunity to win over new fans – and their friends.

The Larrys are also easily forgotten. If they won’t do, say or write anything provocative during their marketing campaign, they won’t engage their audience, which means few will remember them.

The Larrys tend to quietly go along with everything their PR agency suggests. They don’t ask questions when they have them and they don’t contribute their ideas. Their campaigns may be a bit lackluster, because they’re afraid they’ll bother somebody if they actively participate.

The Curly: He’s the star of the stooges – and he doesn’t even know it. The Curlys are the clients with great stories, powerful messages and a big lack of self-awareness. “Why would anyone want to interview me?” they ask.

In truth, everyone has a great story and a pro will find it and use it. Nothing breaks my heart more than to hear someone tell me, “I was with an agency and I paid them thousands of dollars, but all I got was one mention in a weekly paper in Boondocks, Idaho. No one’s interested in me.”

What a cruel blow to a person’s self-esteem! PR companies that tell you “no one’s interested” are really saying, “We didn’t get results, so we’re blaming you.”

Yes, your message, the energy and interesting content you bring to the media and the quality of your book or product will determine whether you ultimately meet all of your goals. But don’t believe for a minute that no one’s interested in you. It’s simply not true.

From what Alex tells me, the actor who played Curly in the original “Stooges” was painfully insecure in real life. That led to heavy drinking, overeating and other self-destructive behaviors, which took a terrible toll on his health. He suffered a stroke in 1946, never fully recovered and died six years later. Such a sad end for a man who made so many people laugh.

The Three Stooges makes for great entertainment on the big screen, but if you want a successful media campaign, don’t be a stooge!  When you’ve hired a team of professionals with a strong track record and plenty of years in the business, trust them.  Let them do their jobs.

Be ready to participate in your campaign by asking questions, sharing ideas and providing any materials or information that might be useful.

And remember, you do have a story that others want to hear. You’re no less important than the next guy.  Don’t make me knock you over the head with a dead fish for you to believe that!

You don’t have to do a lot of research to see that the mainstream media uses social media every day. Every major news anchor has a Twitter account and many of them have Facebook fan pages with thousands of followers who receive regular updates on that anchor’s activities and interests.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper spends several minutes every night asking viewers to connect with him on Twitter and Facebook. Ed Schulz of MSNBC’s The Ed Show runs interactive polls on a nightly basis connecting those using social media back to his evening show. Every major host or anchor has a social media presence in which they not only promote their appearances, but also seek feedback from their audiences.

In radio, one of the largest chains of terrestrial radio stations mandates that their hosts push social media on a regular basis. In fact, on-air personalities are not only judged by their ratings on the air, but they are equally judged by the number of followers and Web hits to their online blogs. Not only that, they put their money where their microphones are by handing out cash bonuses for hosts that overachieve in the social media arena.

The stations understand that the easiest way to get listeners to their Web sites is through their hosts’ social media connections. They also understand the culture of social media that you can’t be too commercial or sound like you’re trying to sell them too hard on going to the Web site, so they post daily news updates, more information about topics they discuss on the shows, celebrity news and even funny viral videos – any kind of content that adds value to the consumer’s online experience. Many stations require their hosts to post something on their blogs at least three times a day, so it’s not something they do of their own discretion – it’s a job requirement!

The host just needs to do shows that are fun and informative, keep listeners tuned in so that the listeners will want to connect with them on Twitter or Facebook, which leaves the train of breadcrumbs back to the station’s Web site.

Stations can then use this online funnel as a way to directly affect their bottom lines, because consumers don’t have to buy a thing once they get there. All they have to do is visit early and often and the advertising dollars can justifiably be multiplied.

Finally, newspapers and magazines are beginning to understand the same paradigm, because they are producing online-only content to drive more Web site visitors. It’s not enough anymore that they simply repurpose their print content for the online visitors. They are now investing in content that is available only online to continue to monetize their Web traffic through advertising. It’s a simple formula, like the radio station model. The more Web site visitors you get, the more you can charge advertisers to reach them.

But if it were about the ad dollars alone, it wouldn’t be worth it to devote so much effort into social media. The media gets far more than that. Let me try to put it into perspective.

The main reason the mass media does social media is exactly the same reason you should. They use social media to build a RELATIONSHIP with their audience. In any business-to-consumer interaction, there is no interaction that is more valuable than the establishment of a relationship with your potential customers.

That’s why I’m such a firm believer in investing the time and energy in social media marketing to develop RELATIONSHIPS (I can’t emphasize the word strongly enough) and build a strong following. Yes, it takes time and energy, but the payoff is that you are building relationships with people, who may one day turn into a client or refer clients. Through this exchange of communication, people learn about your expertise and you get their feedback so everyone benefits in some manner. This interchange takes the relationship to a higher level. The highest level, of course, is that handshake (virtual or face-to-face) that takes place when they become a customer or client.

So, if you want to drive your marketing to a much higher level, do like the big boys do in TV, radio and print – use social media to build relationships with your potential customers and then watch as that potential is realized.

But all too often, the first place that gets cut instead is the company’s marketing budget. And that’s a HUGE mistake because marketing is the very activity that drives in more potential customers.

Marketing is the very food that fuels your sales efforts. So when marketing budgets are cut, you can almost immediately see the dwindling spiral of leads and sales. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the connection.

If anything, marketing should be strengthened during down times – and it’s incumbent upon the CEO to find any way possible to figure out how this can be done. Here are a few tips that can help with your marketing efforts in rough times:

• Increase “outflow.” Whether you market through direct mail, email blasts, advertising or publicity – now, more than ever, is the time to push information out about the value and benefits of your products to potential customers. It’s also the time to get as creative as possible with “out-of-the-box” ideas on how you can more cost-effectively spread the word!

The universal truth about sales is that you won’t get new customers if your information and promotional material doesn’t exist in a wide variety of places outside the doors of your business.

• Review your marketing tactics. Now is the time to analyze which marketing tactics are working the best – and just as important – which marketing tactics are your least successful. If, for example, you experienced a sudden uptick in inbound calls a week after a new direct mail piece was mailed, then by all means expand the reach of that mailer. The reverse is true as well. If your promotion is producing zilch, drop it and instead find and resurrect one that worked well for you in the past!

If you got a big bump after the local paper wrote a story about you, reach out to your local radio and TV talk shows about having you as a guest so you can build on the buzz!

• Examine your pricing. Customers in both the consumer and B2B marketplace typically make buying decisions based on a combination of price, quality and value. There may not be much you can do to improve the quality of your product or service, but you can certainly increase value by offering specials on your pricing. Let’s face it – if your company is looking to cut costs, other companies are doing the same, so give them a reason to choose you. Look hard at your pricing and determine how much margin you have to play with in offering introductory specials. Then, promote like crazy to let everyone in your database know of your special offer!

There are a variety of ways you can win in a down market, but the primary principle to remember is to increase your outflow! You may not know whether your current marketing is working as well as you hoped, but it is far better to discover it is succeeding by expanding it and creating more business, than it is to cut it and watch the bottom drop out of your sales.

For that reason, I thought it might be helpful to share some basics about marketing, PR and advertising, as it relates to your company’s growth.

Let’s start with a very simple, but thorough definition of marketing. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “… an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

This definition makes it pretty clear that marketing is not an activity by itself, but rather, a collection of strategies and actions aimed at driving business to your door. Marketing tactics may include branding, advertising, public relations, merchandising, direct mail advertising, phone sales, infomercials, multi-level marketing, and more.

It also includes the production of “collateral” – materials such as sell sheets, brochures, media kits, sales kits and any other document that supports the sales department. This marketing collateral differs from advertising as it is used later in the sales process, often as materials used by sales people to close prospects.

Let’s talk about advertising. It’s a marketing activity in which companies pay for space in print publications or on Web sites, commercials on radio or television, or direct mail pieces to advertise their products or services. This is paid space, so you control everything that goes into the message, and the cost of the space is based on reach and repetition.

Public relations differs in many ways from advertising. The Encarta dictionary defines PR as: “the practice or profession of establishing, maintaining, or improving a favorable relationship between an institution or person and the public.” Publicity is one of PR’s tactics and involves pitching a news story about your company to the press (both offline or online), and booking your spokesperson as a guest on radio and TV.

Given that the media is driven by ratings on radio and TV and by subscribers and visitors per month for hard copy publications and online news sites, they know precisely the demographics of their audience and what topics keep them engaged. Consequently, they’re very selective about who they interview as guests or who they choose to spotlight in their publications.

The great value of PR is the implicit endorsement that comes with appearing as an expert guest on radio or TV, or being the focus of a story in a newspaper or magazine. So, while advertising serves the needs of the company who is buying the advertising, PR serves the needs of the consumers who watch TV, listen to talk radio and read hard copy or online publications as their source of entertainment and information.

Of course, these are just very brief definitions – intended to give you a simple overview of the topics. I decided to write about this only because in my day-to-day conversations with clients and people interested in our PR services, I find people often confuse advertising with PR, and marketing with advertising – even when speaking with executives at large corporations. Yet each one of these tactics, when understood more clearly, can be so important to an organization’s survival and growth.

Hopefully this brief explanation can be helpful to you.

As David makes clear in both books, the rules for marketing and PR have changed, and everyone, from marketing executives to business owners and entrepreneurs, needs to understand the new landscape if they want to stay relevant in today’s online world.

I am personally excited about his ideas and I’m delighted I can share them with you! I have separated the interview into 3 parts, and below we start with Part 1. (Part 2 and Part 3 are now available.)

Enjoy.

Marsha Friedman: David, there are so many questions I want to ask you! But to start off I’d love for you to tell us about your new book, “World Wide Rave.” Can you explain exactly what this is?

David Meerman Scott: A World Wide Rave is when people are talking about you or your products, services or ideas. It’s really fascinating…it can be an unbelievably successful way to market because, ultimately, if other people are talking about you in a positive way, you’re reaching a whole new audience of people.

MF: Who would benefit the most from the “World Wide Rave” strategy? Is there a certain type of market, industry or individual that is the best fit?

DMS: I’ve seen it work for all different sorts of businesses: large global organizations, small local companies, for B2B, for consumer brands and everyone in between. I’ve even seen it work for very small, local businesses, like dentists. Ultimately, every single person who’s reading this interview is capable of creating something on the web that has potential for people to talk about it, whether it’s a YouTube video, a really interesting blog post, a series of photographs on Flickr, or even an e-book or a research report.

There are countless formats for how you can trigger people to talk about you. I’m convinced from several years of studying these phenomena that anybody can create something that has the power to spread.

MF: Sounds like a nonfiction author could be a good candidate as well?

DMS: Again, I think anybody. For authors, I’ve had tremendous success with what I call e-books. This is a simple PDF document which provides valuable information on the topic that your book is about. The way it works best is you that you offer if for free, with no registration required, and everyone sees instantaneously that it’s valuable because it’s well designed, well written and because it clearly articulates answers to a problem that people have.

And then they say, “Wow, this is pretty cool! I’m going to share this. I’m going to either email it to a friend or colleague, or tweet about it, blog about it or share it on Facebook.” Then one person sends it to another, who sends it to another who sends it to another.

The reason this is so effective for authors is that within that e-book, typically the second or third page (and then again at the end) you reference your printed book. You can say, “This e-book is written by the author of…” including the title of the printed book and links to purchase the book on your own website, Amazon.com or wherever appropriate.

To put it in perspective, last year I put out an e-book called “The New Rules of Viral Marketing.” So far, that e-book has been downloaded over 600,000 times.

And I point them to my published book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” as the place that I want people to go if they enjoyed reading that e-book. And that is one of the important reasons that “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” continues to make the Business Week Best-Seller List, even two years after its initial release.

It’s not like people talk about you for five minutes and then you’re history. If you offer something really valuable, it lives on.

Another interesting point that is particularly true for authors of business books is that it allows you to get an important search term into the search engines. Then if you do a clever job with an e-book, you can actually own those search results. So as an example, an important search term for me and for my business is the term “viral marketing.” And actually viral marketing is the term that most people use for the phenomenon that I call “World Wide Rave,” and we’ll talk a little bit later about the differences.

So viral marketing is an important search term for me, and I purposely named my e-book “The New Rules of Viral Marketing” because I wanted to get that term into the marketplace. Now before I did that, if you enter the term viral marketing into Google, you’d probably have to go down to page six or eight before you got to anything that was written by me…which is Siberia when it comes to the search engines because very few people go beyond the first page.

But now because of the e-book’s popularity, if you go to Google and you type in the phrase “viral marketing,” you see something like 5 million hits, and that e-book, “The New Rules of Viral Marketing,” depending on the day that you look, is somewhere between five and seven on the very first page. The fifth, sixth or seventh position. So absolutely, business book authors can use this tool!

MF: David, that is really interesting. How would you define the difference between World Wide Rave and viral marketing? Is there a difference?

DMS: Viral marketing is a term that’s been around for a while and it refers to information that spreads like a virus. There are a couple of reasons why I tend not to use that term very much these days. One is that virus has negative connotations in terms of health and well-being. Not to mention the negative connotations by way of the computer world. I mean, a virus is a bad thing. Right?

You don’t want a virus in your computer. The other issue is that there are many unscrupulous agencies that have jumped on the viral marketing bandwagon, claiming to be viral marketing agents or viral marketing experts and offering to create programs for people around viral marketing initiatives. I have found that a lot of those, not all as there are certainly some great agencies out there, but a lot of them are based on bait and switch contests and games and other odd practices.

That isn’t the form of viral marketing I’m talking about. The World Wide Rave is based on the idea that you create some really valuable and interesting information that people want to share. A lot of viral marketing nowadays has become “Want to Win a Free iPod? Click Here!!!” And when people do click that link, it doesn’t send you them to valuable information. The result is that you don’t get people who are interested in what you’re doing. You get people who are interested in a free iPod.

MF: Great point, David. Speaking of sharing valuable information, what is the value of a blog and a landing page to your online marketing strategy?

DMS: I think that some place that you point people to is always important. Getting people to talk about you is fantastic, but you want to point them somewhere where they can either learn more, buy something, join a mailing list or whatever it might be. There are many different ways to do that.

It could be your Amazon.com page (for authors), your blog, your website or a landing page. If you have an email newsletter, you can point them to the place where they can sign up for the email newsletter. But it is important to provide people with somewhere they can either learn more, buy something or get into your lead-generation program.

MF: That makes total sense, David. Bottom line, all businesses need to make sales, and at some point their marketing efforts need to result in leads and sales.

~~~~~ End of Part 1 ~~~~~

Part 2 of this interview is now available and can be viewed here: David Meerman Scott Interview, Part 2.

And Part 3 is also now available: David Meerman Scott Interview, Part 3.

Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Bill Nye the Science Guy.

While plumbing, bounty hunting and science might be worthy industries, few would have ever thought they might be the breeding grounds of some of today’s unlikeliest celebrities. But such is the case when we live in a world where the popular media, indeed popular culture, is plugged in and turned on 24/7, 365 days a year.

Being an industry expert is easier than ever these days, but perhaps you feel a little “industry envy” when it comes to your field. Believe me, no field is too big, or too small, to brand yourself as the go-to expert.

Think New Hudson, Michigan is too isolated to be a hot spot for experts and celebrities? Think gardening is too insignificant a subject to own as the go-to expert and publish books and have your own radio show? Jerry Baker disagrees; known as “The Flower Expert,” Jerry has carved out an enviable niche for himself that stretches far beyond the finger lakes.

According to Jerry’s website, “Jerry Baker is the author of more than 50 books, including Jerry Baker’s Flower Garden Problem Solver, Jerry Baker’s Giant Book of Garden Solutions, Jerry Baker’s Green Grass Magic… and Plants Are Like People… His radio show, On the Garden Line, is syndicated nationwide, and his gardening specials have been televised on PBS.”

Now, I think we all agree that’s a resume to be proud of and expertise to be coveted. So how did Jerry Baker, Joe the Plumber, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Bill Nye the Science Guy do it?

Simple; they answered the following eight quick questions to determine whether or not their expertise could support the kind of career that celebrities are made of:

1. Does what I do have value? We all like to think what we do is valuable, not just to us, but to the world at large. Every job has value; we just have to determine exactly what ours is.
2. Do I love what I do? Celebrities, experts, pundits, gurus, call them what you will, the go-to people in ANY field absolutely love what they do. Chances are if you’re reading this article, you do too.
3. Do I love talking to people about what I do? Celebrities are natural talkers, not because they like to hear themselves speak but because they just can’t help but share their enthusiasm for what they do with other people.
4. Do I wish more people could do what I do? Experts in every field naturally believe their field is THE field; they want everyone to share their love of gardening, plumbing, accounting, flying, etc.
5. Do I have an intense desire to reach a bigger audience? We all want to go a little farther, reach a little more and do it a little faster, but experts in their fields really do enjoy dominating a larger playing field each year they’re in the game.
6. Do I know my passion inside and out? One thing that always amazes me about my clients is how well they know their business. Experts aren’t called that because they “kinda, sorta” know what they’re talking about. When you know your field backward and forward, you are ready, willing and most importantly able to Celebritize Yourself.
7. Do I want more credibility through books, CDs, interviews and more? Modern experts recognize that they must become “celebrities” to get the recognition and credibility they deserve; they see this as a natural progression of their industry expertise.
8. Do I want to learn more by teaching more? Lastly, every expert I’ve ever met, written about, helped publicize or interviewed for my radio show has been a natural-born teacher. People with expertise want to share that expertise, and do so willingly; in teaching others about what it is they do (plumbing, bounty hunting, science, flowers), they learn even more – about themselves, their audience and their industry.

So you see, becoming a world-recognized expert in your field – in any field – doesn’t require a Ph.D., a 90210 zip code or a nationally-televised talk show. All you need to dominate your field, any field, is the confidence to Celebritize Yourself and the right answers to all of the above questions.

Talk radio, (one of the most under-utilized goldmines I can think of), can be a powerhouse in terms of promoting your book, your products, your company and services.  As I write this to you, I’m reminded of a great example of this.  A few years back we worked with Dr. Will Wong, a phenomenal media spokesperson who represented two different companies with natural health products.  Both companies focused all their marketing efforts on ongoing talk radio campaigns.

Now listen to this….

The first company went from $55,000 in sales to $7 million in a two year period.  The second company went from zero in sales to $6 million in the same amount of time.

Will called me one day so excited, to tell me, “Every morning now, I come into the office to the sound of our phones ringing off the hook and a very happy sales staff!  We’ve not only increased our direct sales, but our stores are calling to restock their shelves and we’ve obtained more distributors.  In the past we’ve tried all sorts of marketing, advertising and PR, but this talk radio campaign has been by far the most productive!”

The winning formula that I’ve seen work over and over is simply this:  having a message with mass appeal; a spokesperson who can talk about their message as it relates to top news stories and is skilled at using the air time to effectively promote their product without sounding like an infomercial!  A winning combination!

And it really does make sense.  The beauty of talk radio is that you are having live conversations with people all over the country.  Even better, you are talking with a host who invited you on because he or she felt their audience would be interested in what you had to say.  The result: instant credibility with a very captive audience.

But Will isn’t the only example.  Over the years I’ve seen many talk radio successes which is why I’m such a believer in the power of talk radio as a great promotional vehicle.  Who knows, this could be just what the doctor ordered to explode your own business!

Most of them offer the same service, if not better, than the big retainer-based agencies, but at a fraction of the cost. They’re driven to perform because they only get paid for what they deliver while retainer-based agencies charge for their time and their overhead, but are not accountable for results. If they get media placements, that’s great, but if they don’t, you’re still left holding the tab.

Here’s how it works.  When a company engages a retainer-based agency, they are charged a flat monthly fee based on the number of hours they estimate they need to work in order to get the job done. $10,000 a month is an average fee, but it can go as high as $20,000 or even $30,000 a month.

Once the retainer is established, the money is divvied up amongst the team in billable hours, much the same way a law firm or accounting firm handles its business. The executive who brought in the business bills for “managing” the account, which is usually about 10 hours per month, costing the client as much as $350 per hour, or $3,500 of a $10,000 retainer. The executive sets assignments, approves press releases and written materials as well as handles communication with the client but never pitches the press.

In these large retainer based agencies, the executives are used as sales people and compensated for the amount of business they generate for the company.  But, unbeknownst to the client, that executive who closed the deal is the person with the most PR experience, yet does the least amount of work on their campaign. The rest of the retainer is split up among a few junior associates who do the writing, the pitching, the calling and the tracking.

The staff assistants get into the action by billing $75 per hour for activities such as phoning, faxing and organizing documents. They may even charge to create the client’s bill at the end of the month, compiling out of pocket expenses like shipping together with the hourly billing as tracked by the team members. The top executive massages the numbers so they fit the retainer, and it then takes the assistant as long as two hours to compile the bill.

A retainer-based agency may charge clients as much as $125 per month just to assemble their bill.This is a huge difference with how Pay-for-performance PR works. Most firms that operate in this manner set a simple fee for each media placement the firm obtains and the client signs up for a campaign with a specific budget in place. Then, one by one, the placements are made, confirmed and executed and the client is billed weekly or monthly against their agreed-upon budget. The campaign never goes over budget, and every client dollar is counted against a real media placement rather than for “best efforts.”

As marketing budgets are shrinking, companies are pinching pennies and seeking a more quantifiable return on their PR investment. Pay-for-Performance PR not only reduces risk and costs the client less, but more importantly, these firms bring home the PR bacon for clients, or they don’t get paid.

Let me explain.  Say you’ve written a cookbook on southwestern foods, and many of your recipes contain salsa as a main ingredient.  Well, you and your book can be the focus of a national publicity campaign for the salsa manufacturer interested in building or maintaining brand recognition.  AND, at the same time, provide a great opportunity to educate consumers about the variety of ways their salsa can be used (other than a side dish for chips!)  You can do a cooking segment on TV demonstrating the great taste and wide variety of salsa recipes.  How about your book and its salsa recipes featured in the food and lifestyle sections of daily newspapers and magazines? You can even do interviews on talk radio shows that focus on food, health and lifestyles.  These hosts would love a gift basket of salsa and chips as part of the conversation when you appear as a guest on their show. Subsidizing a campaign like this would undoubtedly give the salsa company a handsome return on their investment! Another example might be a book with household tips (Queen of Clean comes to mind!) that includes products used in unique ways – like toothpaste to flash patch walls or club soda to remove stains on your clothes.  Each of the manufacturers of these products could be approached to sponsor portions of your book tour!

What does a corporation gain by investing in the promotion of your book?  The answer is simple – live, on-air conversation and demonstration of their product and editorial coverage that’s priceless.  This broad national publicity does more to strengthen brand recognition for an existing product or build brand recognition for a new product than any advertising campaign is capable of!  It will have a direct impact on sales that is unbeatable and unmatched by advertising dollars.

So, be creative in your thinking.  If you’re resourceful and have good credentials to be a spokesperson for a company’s product – you and your book can be a great marketing vehicle for that company to invest in.  It’s a true win/win partnership for everyone.

A maverick in the world of radio broadcasting, in addition to being a weathered trade journalist, Harrison has been at the center of many of the most exciting radio revolutions of the past 30+ years.  As you know, Talkers, is the leading talk radio publication and was one of the first radio trade journals to expand into the cutting edge technology of the “New Talk Media” which includes talk on the Internet and satellite radio as well as cable television.

Recently, Marsha Friedman, News & Experts Founder and CEO of Event Management Services, sat down with Michael and interviewed him about the changing landscape of talk radio and how these changes will revolutionize the industry as a whole. Please click here to read Part 1 of this interview.

Marsha Friedman: First off, what effect do you think the new Arbitron Personal People Meters will have on talk radio?

Michael Harrison: I think that Arbitron is having a difficult time rating radio accurately.  It is not their fault, it’s just down to the fact that radio is almost impossible to rate accurately.  It’s so large, mysterious, idiosyncratic, fractionalized, unstable and spread out in so many different directions.  There are so many things going on at any given moment that there are numerous ways of slicing and dicing the ratings for specific target audiences.  Thus, there are lots of ways of being number one in something. Also, it’s so unwired, meaning there’s no way of really attaching a meter to the reality of the act of listening to the radio without interfering with how a person listens to the radio.  All of that combined makes it almost impossible to accurately rate radio.

The diary method worked for a long time, although it was extremely inaccurate.  There was a huge “guesstimate” element involved in terms of a margin-of-error and it was very chancy depending on many factors: who got the diary, how it was distributed, and even if the person could recall what they listened to.  Everybody in the business knew that it wasn’t a very good method, but the diary method was geared to dealing with the mom-and-pop culture of radio that existed before corporate consolidation and everybody had a stake in it.

You heard broadcasters say things like, “Well, it’s not a good system, but it’s the only system we have, so we have to live with it.”  But in corporatized radio that doesn’t cut it anymore, especially since we’re in a highly technical era where people want exact numbers.  They want specifics and they want them now. The whole diary method being old and last quarter just doesn’t cut it anymore.  The problem with the People Meter goes back to what I said before about radio.  It’s so difficult to track that in order for Arbitron to do it truly accurately from a standpoint of mathematical science, they have to have so many units out there and painstakingly monitor the distribution of these units – which would make it nearly impossible for them to make any money in doing it.  So, that’s why they keep having these fits and starts and different factions complaining that it’s not accurate, that it’s not fair.  Of course, Arbitron won’t admit this… and I can’t really blame them.  They are doing the best they can.So to answer your question, they have a lot of work ahead of them and there are a lot of problems that are deeper than Arbitron can really be responsible for.  What are the big problems facing terrestrial radio as we enter into the 21st Century?  A big one is the fact it’s almost impossible to rate accurately.

Marsha Friedman:  You say it is nearly impossible to rate accurately Michael, but do you see a better solution in sight?

Michael Harrison: Well, I don’t really see much of a better way to do it because you can’t attach a wire to everybody’s radio in their car and at home to really be able to monitor accurately.  We have to come to grips with the situation and deal with it honestly.  We have to have better salesman in radio, better account executives that go out and educate their clients as to how to really buy radio.  We have to educate the agencies because you can’t just sell PPM and radio by the numbers.  It’s not good for radio or the clients, only the agencies because it makes their lives simple. Cost per point should just be one element of the marketing equation based on the premise that it is a guess at best.

There has to be a massive education as to the qualitative nature of radio beyond just a quantitative nature of radio, and that burden falls on the shoulders of the marketing departments of radio stations.  Clients out there also need to be educated and demand more of their ad agencies.  Putting money out there based upon cost per point is not going to give them the effectiveness for their dollar that they seek.

Even deeper, as we enter the age of the Internet, you cannot talk about the future of radio without talking about the future of the Internet. We’re going to reach a point where, because people will be able to find whatever they’re looking for using search engines, the nature of the programming will define the nature of the audience.  If you’re doing something either on the radio or the Internet that people want to hear, see or consume, common sense will indicate that you’ve got an audience.  And the key is for us in the marketing world to understand the nature of the programming will be defining the audience.  If you build it, they will come.  But if you build it and they don’t come, it’s because they didn’t want it or need it.  I guess, simply put, radio sales people have got to sell the idea of common sense.

Marsha Friedman: In this electronic age, what do you think that terrestrial radio needs to do to survive?

Michael Harrison: For terrestrial radio to survive it needs to have the best programming available anywhere, and that programming has to be exclusive to AM and FM radio.  If they stream on the Internet based upon the current conventional wisdom that people will hear it on the Internet and thus go back to listen to the radio…they’re not going to.  Once they’re listening on the Internet, they have no reason to go back to the AM or the FM dials.

They should create different programming for the Internet and leave their best programming, or their real meat and potatoes, on the AM and the FM dials.  On their Internet site, the people will hear clips, excerpts, cutting room floor stuff, special programs which will compel them to go back to their AM or FM radio to hear the station itself.

That’s the only answer.  The current model of streaming your programming, although in the short term it gives your advertisers and your brand more exposure (which is a good thing), but in the long run it’s quickening the demise of the AM and the FM channel having any value whatsoever.  But because corporate radio lives in a world of quarterly reports, there is the irresistible urge and pressure to sell the future out for immediate gain.

Marsha Friedman: Do you propose this to save their lives or just prolong the lives of the AM and FM stations?

Michael Harrison: I want to point out that this is only a measure that will prolong the life of AM and FM.  It will not extend it indefinitely. The only thing that AM and FM can do today that makes sound business sense is to prolong their life an extra few years because I think the handwriting is on the wall.  I don’t believe that AM and FM can survive for very long one way or the other in the wake of the Internet. The Internet is going to continue to change everything. These websites that we now consider to be adjuncts to the radio station, or promotional vehicles for the radio, will actually replace the radio station.  And, they’re going to do so a lot quicker than we realize.

Marsha Friedman: Wow. So Michael, what happens to the whole terrestrial radio industry?

Michael Harrison: It moves to the Internet and becomes bigger and better than ever before. It becomes more diverse. It becomes multi-channeled. It becomes infinite in terms of its real estate, inventory and creative ability. It becomes unfettered and unrestrained by FCC regulations. It will be superior. Today’s AM and FM radio station will evolve into tomorrow’s “media station” – a broadband superstation, if you will. The only parties that have anything to lose by this transition are the people who have serious money invested in the licenses.

Marsha Friedman: So what you are saying is that in the future you won’t need licensing?

Michael Harrison: No, you don’t need a license to be a broadcaster in this new era that’s unfolding.  What you need is to have a product that people want to hear, and not only will they hear it; they will also look at it and read it.  Again, I predict that we’re going to see the rise of what I call a media station which will be oriented to audio, video or to text.  It’s going to replace the radio and television stations, magazines and newspapers.

For example, the media station of The New York Times will be oriented to text because its history is that it has writers.  The heir to WABC-AM will be a media station oriented to audio because it is the heir to great speakers, talkers.  The media stations of the big television stations will be video oriented, again because their roots are in video.

The only difference is that they will all have elements of each other.  They’ll be no such thing as what I call “monomedia” – media that exist independently of each other with special appliances necessary to receive them such as “radios” and “television sets” or “CD players” and “DVD players.”  Audio-only in this new environment will seem archaic because the appliance that you’re listening to it on now has a screen.  And will the screen be blank?  Of course not, you’ve gotta put something on this screen, and it doesn’t mean that you have to have a television show.  It just means that there will be a video accompaniment to whatever it is that you’re presenting in an audio way.

For example, say you are interviewing an author of a new book.   While the author is being interviewed on the radio, people who are consuming this on the media station will also have a chance to see a picture of the author, a picture of the book cover, maybe a coupon that they could print out, maybe extensive information about the subject in text form that they could download and print out and on and on.  We are adding to the dimensions that we’re playing with and this requires intelligence and abstract reasoning.  It’s a completely new paradigm and it’s unfolding before our very eyes.  My educated guess is that within 10 years it’s going to be a completely different landscape.

And the only thing standing between websites being an accompaniment or an extension of 20^th Century media (radio and television stations) is a couple more clicks of the technological evolution towards cars having Internet radio in them and video monitors being standard equipment.  In other words, cars being completely Wi-Fi’d and people being able to click on any of an infinite number of media stations with the same ease they can now turn on a radio or television station.

Marsha Friedman: I had another question about the quality of weekend programming for radio stations.  We’re seeing far less radio infomercials being produced and time being bought which certainly affects the revenues of the radio stations.  But also you have the issue of the quality of weekend programming being so inferior.  How do you see all of that playing out?

Michael Harrison: Well, I think that it’s self-defeating for radio stations to have to broker time to inferior programming on their precious airwaves in order to make money which goes back to what I said before about selling out the future for immediate survival.  Unfortunately, the reason they are forced to do this is because of the problems they are having selling spots and advertising.  So sadly they have to resort to a method of generating revenue that at one time was considered embarrassing. It would behoove the stations to be as selective as possible in their choice of brokered shows and help their clients produce as decent a product as possible. Not likely to happen, though.

Marsha Friedman: I remember back in the early 90′s when I first got into business, there were a few stations that brokered time.  Boy has that changed!

Michael Harrison: Correct, correct.  This is an unfortunate thing, but I understand why they’re doing it because we’re in a period of time when we’re seeing the decline of the radio spot as a workable unit of measurement.  It’s getting harder and harder to sell these things and as a result, they have to do whatever they have to do to survive.  But again, it’s killing the viability of radio and its future unless, of course, they put good shows on.

I have to say out of fairness, there are a percentage of brokered shows out there that are actually very good.  It is not a majority percentage, but they do exist. So let’s not paint all brokered shows as being bad.  That’s one.  Two, there are a lot of shows out there that are not brokered but are still paying to get on and that’s called compensation where the syndicators are paying the stations, not the stations paying the syndicators, but the syndicators paying the stations to get on. They’re calling it by the more positive term “compensation” because it’s more mainstream well-known talent than your local chiropractor promoting his practice. But it’s still a form of brokered show.

So, again, it comes down to the fact that terrestrial radio is having a terribly difficult time generating revenue via traditional advertising sales and this ties back into the discussion we had earlier about the difficulty in getting accurate ratings and selling this product quantitatively in a marketplace that understands radio has serious, serious problems.

Without quality content there can be no future for AM and FM radio.  It can’t be because you can get better stuff on the Internet.  And then as soon as the Internet is a few notches more accessible and ultimately ubiquitous – it’s over.  Ah, but out of the ashes of good ol’ 20th century terrestrial radio will rise the phoenix of exciting, unlimited media station broadcasting – and what a wondrous scene that will be!

Please click here to read Part 1 of this interview.