The Power of Radio to Increase Your Influence

You’ve finally done it. You’ve written the book. You’ve created the information product. You’ve developed the workshop.

You’ve also developed a nice promotional plan with radio being a primary way you’ll make your market aware of what you offer.

The challenge you feel is knowing how to get, and optimize, the interviews.

Here are a few key things that must be considered. You will gain more traction from any airtime you secure when you have a strong online presence.

Continually grow your online presence through social media channels, article marketing, blogging, guest blogging and other foundational steps to make it easy for people to find you through a simple Google search. The more content you have online, the easier it is for someone to Google your name and have ample opportunities to find your information.

By doing this, you can actually make the most of your radio opportunities. Recently, I was on a program sharing insights about being very visible to one’s market. Shortly after the show aired I received an email message from a listener. She was very interested in my services.

I wasted no time hopping on the phone to have a conversation with her. Because she mentioned she heard me on the show, I didn’t need to ask the obvious question, “How did you hear about me?”

She actually offered this information. “I did a quick Google search and found lots of information on you. This made me realize I definitely needed to talk to you.”

Had I not had a great presence online (which I continually work on) she likely would not have been eager to contact me.

If you don’t have a strong online presence you would benefit greatly from putting daily effort into content distribution. Again, whether it be through social media channels, article marketing, blogging, guest blogging and any of the many ways to be seen online, do something daily to raise your visibility.

However, take a very targeted approach. As well, you need to diversify your efforts without spreading yourself too thin.

As you do this, also seek out opportunities to get on the air. Two excellent resources for this are Help a Reporter Out (www.helpareporter.com) and Radio Guest List (www.radioguestlist.com).

Before submitting your information consider the following:

· What is the theme of the show?

· What type of guest experts are the host and/or producer looking for?

· Who listens… who is the audience?

· How long is the interview?

· Are there other guest experts being interviewed?

· Will you be required to promote your segment? If so, what is expected?

By far, radio can be one of the best ways to gain visibility and promote a book, product or speaking engagement. However, you may not be able to overtly promote.

If this is the case, the best thing you can do is develop your storytelling ability. As you are asked questions, answer with a story.

For example, if you are an expert on health and nutrition with a newly released book, you can share case studies that you have written about in your new book.

If you are a mindset expert, you can give examples about how the listeners can expand their mindset with daily meditation with a subtle mention of the meditations you’ve created in your new info product.

Let’s say you are a dog trainer and you have a video series on the three top ways to leash train a rescue dog. This is where you can direct people to your video series.

The main thing with radio is to be engaging, entertaining and relaxed. The more you are able to do this, the easier it is to mention where people can get more information about you, and makes it a natural part of the conversation.