Last Friday, October 3rd, Taylor Swift released her heavily anticipated ‘Life of a Showgirl’ album. By Monday morning, when we look at new music across formats, it was clear the album had been well received to say the least. Not just in pop, but overall, Taylor had the top 12 highest streamed songs over that three-day period. No other artist’s tune outperformed any one of Taylor’s new songs. Although Morgan Wallen and Sabrina Carpenter have gotten somewhat close to that achievement, that’s the first time we’ve seen that happen in the six years we’ve been watching this data. Once again Taylor proved why all of radio should get out of their old habit of only adding one new song by an artist at a time, which to be fair many already have. But, what other radio lessons can Taylor teach us? Here are a few that come to mind.
Have a plan
T-Swift doesn’t do anything in her professional life haphazardly, everything is strategic. Because of the live and somewhat laid-back nature of radio, we could all be better at always having a plan. Every meeting should have a plan, as should morning shows, station imaging, sales calls, promotions, engineering projects and so on. One of the most common answers you get when you ask employees at a failing station why they did something they should not have done is this, ‘I don’t know, we just did.’ That’s because either their was never a plan, that plan wasn’t clearly communicated to everyone or that’s a rogue employee who is knowing ignoring the plan.
Market aggressively
When Taylor Swift drops an album everyone in the world knows about it. Obviously, she now has the benefit of tons of free marketing because of her massive celebrity status, but that wasn’t always the case and even with that she still makes the rounds to get the word out on her new album to people outside of her bubble. Radio generally does a great job marketing internally by letting their existing audience know about anything new they’re doing. But, we typically don’t do that well with external marketing to let potential new listeners know about new things. We can fix that by building back in external marketing budgets and mixing old-school things like press-releases and tv appearances with new media options like working with bloggers, podcasters and influencers.
Build your brand, then protect it
Without a doubt Taylor Swift has built an incredibly successful brand. But, so have many of her contemporaries. What makes Taylor stand out is how well she’s protected that brand over the past 19 years. She’s done that by being very selective, and again strategic, about the quality of the product she puts out with her recorded music and her live performances. So, often I’ve seen companies and stations develop incredibly strong radio brands only to let them fade over time. Usually that’s because those brands are chipped away at a little at a time by short-term and short-sided decisions to do something that clearly doesn’t fit the core of the station’s brand. Getting to number one is hard, staying at number one is considerably harder. Making the tough decisions to protect the station’s brand is the key to staying on the mountain top long term.
Treat your core fans well
There’s a reason why there’s an army of Swifties that jump at the opportunity to defend Taylor anytime they perceive that someone has wronged her. She’s gained their undying loyalty by going out of her way to engage and interact with them and let them know how much she appreciates them. Many successful radio people treat their listeners the same exact why. Conversely many less successful radio folks tend to act like listeners are a nuisance; by hitting busy all on the phone system so they don’t have to talk to them and hiding away in VIP at events so they don’t have to see them.
Treat your employees well
During her record-breaking Eras tour that lasted two years, Swift gave out $197 million in bonuses to everyone working on the tour, including truck drivers, dancers and musicians. Obviously, it’s easier to give out bonuses when you’re running a profitable business, which Taylor certainly is. But there are plenty of radio groups and individual stations that are in the black but only bonus employees on the sales side of the business who have that built into their employment agreements. Radio could stand to adopt Taylor’s team-wide approach by rewarding everyone on staff with bonuses when goals are met as a way to incentivize everyone to overperform.
Never stop evolving and growing
But, the main lesson Taylor Swift could teach radio is to continue constantly evolving and growing. Most songwriters have a window to write songs that connect with people. It’s usually anywhere from 5 to 10 years when they’re lucky enough to speak a language that’s relatable to the masses. The rare few who get to do it longer are able to do so because their music, and their songwriting, grows and evolves with the audience. On days when I’m most frustrated I start to feel like my fellow radio people may be more resistant to change than people in any other profession on earth. But, then there are the good days when I see people who have been doing this for as long, or longer, than I have that are willing to try a new approach to an old medium. I’m happy to say those good days are happening more often lately and I take that as a good sign for our industry and its future.
What do you think? What other lessons can radio learn from Taylor Swift? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.