Mailbox Blessings

Usually, checking the mailbox does not make my top things to do in a day. I don't look forward to bills, flyers and credit card offers. That's all that usually lurks inside. This week though, the mailbox held so much wisdom and inspiration in one tiny little package.

The first edition of the new WC Mini Mag arrived!

It's a print magazine geared towards work at home moms. I know, I'm only half a work at home mom, now that I have a day job- but that's beside the point. After working from home for ten years, it's only natural that I still identify strongly with the work at home crowd. Especially since I do work at home, even if it's not full time.

Anyway, it was great curling up with a cup of tea offline and flipping through real pages. I am not typically a magazine reader. Most of the standard magazines out there just don't speak to me. Living in a small town, my need for fashion advice from the runways of Paris is negligible. I find mainstream parenting magazines annoying and the natural ones a bit too green. I'm not into the latest in celebrity gossip, and find that I find out the big news through the grapevine at work. I used to buy specialty writing magazines at one point in time, but I don't think they'd be considered a write-off anymore now that I'm not making a living from writing directly.

That's not to say I'm not a reader. I am a prolific reader. I love books and the library is my best friend when I don't have a zillion dollars in overdue fines due my bad habit of losing books under the bed.

I love the feel of paper between my fingertips and it's just not the same when it's something from online printed up on the home printer.

When it comes to real print, there's just not much out there aimed at work at home moms.

Except for the WC.

I couldn't afford to buy it when it was first launched as a paid subscription and I never did sign up for it when it went to a free publication, but when Kelly announced she was going back to a paid subscription I just knew I had to bite the bullet and sign up.

I am so glad that I did.

I curled up in a chair with a lovely cup of tea and absorbed the whole thing.

I still haven't listened to the CD that came along with it. That's on the roster for this weekend.

I loved what I read and can't wait for the next issue to arrive - now that's the way to put together a magazine. If you're thinking about subscribing - I'll steal a phrase from Nike here - just do it!

If you're not quite sure what is inside, you can check out the smaller online only edition to see if it's something you might like to brighten up your mailbox.

Fresh from another interview

The week before last I was on WAHM Talk Radio talking about podcast advertising on Moms Talk Radio and the great network of shows there. Today I spoke with Michelle Waters from Product Seller's Talk Radio about radio advertising for Product Sellers. It was a great, but short interview. You all know me - I could talk about radio advertising for hours and hours.

In any case, after the official part of the interview was over, we got to talking about what one needs to think about when calling a radio station.

Obviously, the first thing consideration must be your target market. If you're selling a product to work at home mothers (or those who want to be) - you should begin your search with Christian or Country Radio Stations.

This is not to say that you won't find work at home moms listening to Rock or Hip Hop and any every other type of music (I happen to be primarily into hard rock and punk myself) - the fact is the concentration of women who are most likely to be open to working at home will be higher on Christian and Country Music Stations.

Another option would be the local talk radio show that plays the Dr. Laura Show. Since Dr. Laura is a huge advocate of working at home, it stands to reason that there will be a proportion of her audience that works at home or wants to.

The point is that if you want to get the most out of your radio advertising, the better you can identify what station or show attracts the highest concentration of your target market - the more effective your campaign is going to be. If you can further identify when they are most likely to be listening, then you can schedule your campaign so that your dollars stretch further than buying a run-of-schedule campaign.

We also talked about getting to know your advertising representative an making sure he or she is a right fit for your business. I'll blog about that another day.

Stay tuned!

Tears on my Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. Now I'm not typically the type who dreads birthdays or who is ashamed of my age. I'm 35 now and darn it, that's a pretty good age to be.

On top of that I had started the week off in a fantabulous mood. Things are going great business wise and at work. Hubby has a new job and things are looking up.

And yet, despite getting two cakes...I was on the verge of tears, if not fully engulfed in tears, throughout most of the day.

This is so not me! It's not my style at all. I am not a whiny, woe is me type person who cries at the drop of a hat. But I was yesterday.

I was reminded early on in the day through a facebook posting that this is the first year that my mom is not here. It was said with the absolute best of intentions and not meant to be snarky or to hurt me at all. I dissolved into a mess of tears anyway.

I don't have a clue why that affected me so much. I've known she's been gone since August. I spent the month of September in a dark mood. I thought it had lifted that I was out of the woods.

And then BAM! Hit me like a ton of bricks on my birthday of all days!

It didn't help that the cake they bought me at work was themed "Older than Dirt". I know it was all in good fun, because the staff is all so much younger than I am.

I don't think I let on that my feelings were slightly hurt that I didn't get a cake that had a hunk on a bearskin rug like the other girls that had birthdays earlier. I guess I do come across as a fuddy duddy and not much fun to be around.

When did I turn into such a sensitive wuss?

When will the old me return? I do hope it's soon.

Meanwhile, I did have some fun at the WAHExpo, Kelly McCausey's presentation on personality was amazing and the publicity talk by Shannon Cherry was solid and well delivered. I didn't win any prizes, but maybe that means the iPod will be mine? I can always hope.

It's gotta get better sometime. Today would be good.

Official Confirmation...

I have been very excited about the changes at XM105's website. The new rewards format for our Extreme Listeners is top-notch and I simply adore the survey feature and can't wait till we can start putting the online advertising features to the test.

Some have asked whether online radio gets much attention and whether it's going to be a worthwhile investment from a business perspective. Until now, I've only had my gut feelings and years of online business to go on. Now, I've found that there is indeed official confirmation of my instincts.

According to this article, a recent report put together by Media Audit revealed that 1 in 5 surfers visited their local radio websites. I thought it was interesting that more men were apt to hop online to visit a station website. Locally, I've noticed that more women tend to be the online types than men. This could be because, being an oil & logging town, many men are away for extended periods of time and don't tend to be in offices or home the way they are in urban centres.

In any case, another sign that radio is a great way to advertise...whether it's online or on the air. Don't you think?

Friday Night Rant

Every day I get a little gift from Google. No, it's not Adsense income - that would be nice, but I am not there (yet). What I'm talking about is my Google News Alerts.

You see, I figured that the alerts would be nice inspiration for my own blog writing ideas.

That proved true tonight. One of the alerts led to me to a blog from a participant at BlogWorld 07

I have to disagree with the Keynote Speaker from Tech TV. In short, he believes that traditional media doesn't understand the bi-directional nature of of the Internet and that we (I say we because I do consider myself a part of traditional media by virtue of my position at XM105, a job I love and a platform I believe in) don't ee the Internet as much more than another broadcasting platform.

It ticks me off that someone can paint all traditional media with the same brush. I guess that's his opinion and he's entitled to it.

I can't speak for any other station, but I know what goes on in ours and I know we are seeking ways to reach out and encourage listener participation, interaction and communication.

Yeah, there's work to be done. There are still things that we could do better as a station to improve our Internet presence , but we know it and things are changing.

Maybe it's not as quick as it can be when there are only one or two people involved in the decision making. There's a learning curve involved in transitioning to new media. It takes time to learn and apply all the things involved in creating a website that serves a target market.

But we do get it.

Our staff is young. Well mostly young, there are a few gray hairs on my head and there are two people that are older than me at the station, but the staff is primarily in the under-25 set. They're reasonably savvy about social networking and they know about blogs. They use the internet daily in their work. Nobody is oblivious to the new media or the new paradigm of communication that it represents.

He may be convinced that traditional media is dying out and that it will be dead in 20 years. I'm not!

In fact, I believe that integrating tradition with technology is going to open new doors and create new opportunities. Duh! That's why I've chosen the tagline "Integrating Tradition with Technology". It's not just a catchphrase that came to me in a dream. It wasn't some flash of creativity that made me go "uh, that sounds cool - I'll use that".

Yes, the media is changing. Radio is not going to look the same 10 years from now as it does today. That doesn't mean it's dying, just adapting.

Radio has been darn good at adapting over the years. Television was supposed to kill it. Now the Internet is? I don't think so! There's no need to buy the shovels and book the pipers yet. There will be no funeral to plan here.

Radio is an industry that attracts creative, intelligent people. It's not going to fall into the throes of death because of a little competition. In fact, a little friendly competition is exactly what will spur the industry to greater heights. That's the nature of the beast. It's not going to kill us, it's going to make us stronger.

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One does not need formal web design education to have the eye of an artist. Any web design is good until anyone else points a flaw in it. Only one should choose a web host after investigating if it is complaint with your web design. A cheap web hosting is just as good if it can do so. Once you have the dedicated servers, you can start work on the web development of the site. Marketing strategies like pay per click come next.

On the right track...

I've been feeling a little off lately. Sales at the station have flattened, mostly because I've been trying to deal with personal issues. I find I never sell well when I'm feeling desperate on the inside. No matter how much I get out and play the "fake it till you make it" game. So I've been feeling somewhat like one of those little smiley guys on the forums - beating my head up against the wall.

It will turn, it always does.

Meanwhile, something I read at Marketing Roadmaps, perked me up considerably. The first part is about the blog I cited last week, but the part that jumped out at me was:

"The best social media marketing people won't be PR people. Or marketing people. They will have a skill set that blends both disciplines. Whether you are at an agency or in a company, start developing this -- in yourself, in your teams.

Stop worrying about whether PR or marketing is going to win. The answer is neither. And both."

This captures the essence of the message that I have been trying to communicate. It is what I have envisioned for Easy Results with Radio, when I began to tighten my focus to the three areas of radio advertising, podcast advertising and publicity as I explained in my interview with Kelly McCausey on WAHM Talk Radio this week.

Though I didn't describe it as such, I really do see this project of mine as a synergy between public relations and marketing.

It is so nice to see it confirmed by someone else. I needed that.

Kelly McCausey and My Chocolate Craving

You'd think that being less than 48 hours after Halloween, that my craving for chocolate would be dampened. Of course, you'd be wrong...

Halloween chocolate is nothing compared to the luxury chocolate being offered up as a prize in the November contest at Moms Talk Radio.

So last night while I was being interviewed for WAHM Talk Radio for next Monday's show where I'll be talking about podcast advertising. I asked if I could turn the tables on Kelly McCausey and ask her a few questions.

I've only edited it a smidge and didn't bother with putting together an intro and so forth because I wanted to get it up and get my entry into the contest as quick as I could!

If you click to listen to the interview you'll hear me asking five questions that I thought I would get interesting answers to. I was right! They were really interesting answers. Of course, what would I expect from the Diva of Podcasts?

Not that she says she's the Diva of anything. Kelly is one of the most down to earth people I've met...

In any case, here are the questions I asked:
1.