"What Time Is It" ?

I love it when you arrange to meet a person at a certain time and they show up promptly, don’t you?
You know the feeling of saying to a friend, “I’ll meet you at 6:30 outside Starbucks”.
6:30 arrives, you are there and bang on time, your friend arrives.
It shows respect and appreciation.

The opposite is also true though.

How annoying is it, standing outside a coffee shop or a store for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes waiting and waiting for someone to show up?
“What’s their problem? Couldn’t they phone to say they were running late”?
We’ve all been there and I’m sure it can drive you mad.

When your friend shows up late, or just not at the agreed time, it shows that they are not really paying attention to your needs, your requests or your time.
They reckon that a ‘rough’ time frame ought to do the job.

On the radio, we need to show up on time for our listeners too.
Now, I’m not talking about showing up on time for your gig! That’s a given. I think your PD might have a word or two if you arrived in the studio twenty minutes after your show starts!
What I am talking about is when we give our listeners Time References.
It’s a tool we use a lot on air.
“Coming up soon”
“That’s on the way”
“Later this hour”.
That sort of thing.

But let’s take a look at what those time references mean and how your listener processes them.
Imagine listener #1 is called Bob.
Bob is sitting in his car in traffic on the way into work. He’s listening to the radio and has stopped on your show. He is a semi-loyal listener to your station as he likes the music and sometimes he gets a laugh out of it. That’s what connects him to you.
Bob knows the traffic is pretty light today and he will get to the office in about fifteen minutes.
Meanwhile, you are back in the studio putting together the best show you can.
You’re heading into an ad break and decide to Forward Sell an item.

You say,
“Led Zeppelin is re-uniting. Their concert here in town is already sold out. But I’ll tell you how you could win the last two tickets to the show a little later this hour”.
OK. Well done. You did a nice Forward Sell. The PD will be happy with the link, you will be happy with the link, but Bob in his car might not be.
Bob knows he has fifteen minutes left in his journey.
He has no idea when you are going to tell him about the ticket giveaway.
Bob happens to be a huge Zeppelin fan and would love those tickets.
Fast forward fifteen minutes and Bob has arrived at work. You have done one more link in that time, but did not yet mention the ticket giveaway.
Now Bob is annoyed.
Why is he annoyed?
Because he didn’t get the information he wanted. He ran out of time. He had to get on with his life.

So how do we avoid annoying people like Bob when we Forward Sell like this?

By being Specific.

Give specific times.
“Led Zeppelin tickets to give away. I’ll tell you how within the next fifteen minutes”.
Now Bob has a solid time frame to work on.
That suits him perfectly. What luck! He is able to listen for that amount of time and knows he will hear the information he wants.
That’s as long as you keep your word and ‘show up on time’. As long as you do as you say.

Saying, “On the way”, “Later this hour” and “Coming up soon” tell us nothing.
All they mean is that you will get around to it eventually and in your own time. You haven’t decided when exactly that time will be yet but hey- I’ll get back to you!

Specific.
That can take different forms.
One is actually announcing a time; “The Mystery Voice is at 6:30 this evening”.

Another is saying the word ‘Next’ (into an ad break or feature), “Led Zeppelin are next”.
That means that when this feature is over, I will hear Led Zeppelin. No later. No extra waiting around. I can hang around for that (thinks Bob)!

The last one is giving a time frame. Later this hour won’t cut it for your listener, but “In the next ten/fifteen/twenty minutes”, will.

By the way, I wouldn’t go further forward than twenty minutes. Anything after that is asking a lot. Unless you are promoting a station feature (like a Morning Show item) and need to follow a liner on this.
Other wise, if it’s an element in your show that you want to promote, then twenty is the max.



Your listener will appreciate your decisiveness on this. He/she will appreciate the fact that you are giving them specifics. They don’t want to have to hang around endlessly waiting for you to figure out a time that suits you. They have a life to live and won’t have the time to hang on your every word. But if you say “Within the next fifteen minutes”, chances are they may decide that’s an OK amount of time to wait for the payoff.

Oh, one last thing.
It’s possible to be too specific sometimes!
“Coming up in eleven minutes” would be too specific!!
I don’t think the listener is sitting there timing you. They don’t have the stopwatch on them!
Why not go all the way and say “Coming up in eleven minutes and twenty nine seconds”!?
You get my point.
The important thing, of course, is to then do as you say.
If you say ‘twenty minutes’, it better be no later than that.
If you say ‘next’, it better be.
Otherwise you will annoy Bob and he may not trust you in the future.
You have to deliver on your promises.

Don’t make Bob wait for you. Be there when you said you would.

Oh, and enjoy your coffee!

Brian.


To find out more about ‘Time Reference’, contact brian@bmacmedia.com

http://www.bmacmedia.com