We don't sell radio: we sell marketing solutions! Our clients will be glad to see us if they view us as unpaid staff members. We know we've arrived when our clients call us to help them plan their marketing.

Our advertising is only one piece of the marketing puzzle. Once we get an interested customer in their door, our clients must take over. They must convert the warm body into a fan. And, sometimes, we need to advise our clients on how to do this as well.

We need to help our clients focus on what their customers want and need. To be truly successful with their marketing, excellence must happen in the following areas:

The marketing decision must be made before the financial decision. They must serve the customer before they serve the bottom line.

They must become an expert on what their customers think, want, need and will purchase.  They can take full advantage of the resources available from information systems.

They need to build a customer-driven culture.  Organize everyone to serve the customer.

Think strategically.  Organizations of the future will be constructed to fit the way customers want to buy, not along product lines, geography or function.  Focus on the customer.

Think of customers as people.  There are no mass markets.  Micromarkets are disappearing.  The new market is one family or one person.

Don't aggravate your customer.  How can you keep a customer and charge nuisance fees or penalties?  Think of Southwest Airlines as an example of organizations who have a minimum of aggravating charges.

Our radio advertising can only be as effective as the total marketing structure of our clients.  Help them to be on-target.  And, while we're at it, it wouldn't hurt us to take some of our own advise when planning our customer strategies!