The first way is to create a feature around your brand. Creating a news hook can turn a commercial message into a newsworthy one, taking the aim of an advert and delivering it in the form of a news story. In radio, your story is always more important than your product, so if it can be delivered in an engaging, interesting, and justifiable way, you could get a huge boost to your brand recognition because people will remember the story. People remember stories far longer than adverts, they stay in the collective consciousness because we can identify with a narrative, if we can connect the story with ourselves, we’re far more likely to hold on to it. So this method is arguably one of the best ways to build brand recognition that works towards your goals.

The second way is to use a presenter as a brand ambassador. Giving a presenter a sample or prize is a way of gaining attention, while at the same time abiding by OFCOM rules. This immediately gains the public’s trust, as radio presenters are known to them. Even though they will not give brands a direct endorsement, just the fact that your brand is on the radio at all will validate it. Competitions are great for radio stations because they draw and keep attention by teasing the prize all through the length of a show, so for very low cost to you, you can ensure massive reach by simply giving your product to a station. People respond very positively to competitions, they’re also more likely to remember your product due to the fact that people listen more intently when there’s something in it for them. The added bonus is of course that by being offered as a prize, people attach significantly more value to your product, so even if they’ve never heard of it before, they’ll want to win it.

For more information on staging radio competitions and how to use broadcast PR to grow your brand, please contact us on 020 7158 0000, or email us. 

An ISDN Unit is a small device that can enable you to communicate directly with radio stations in the format they need for you to come across on-air as if you are in a studio in such good quality that the audience think that you are in the radio station's studio doing the interview live on-air.
The aim of an ISDN Unit is to be crisper and cleaner making sure that for larger radio stations, you can meet the right audio quality standard required to make you sound professional.
Generally, radio stations (particularly radio stations like the BBC: Radio 4, Radio 5 etc.) normally seek spokespeople who can do an interview with ISDN quality. ISDN is a digital format of transferring data that, in terms of quality, is as twice as good as a normal phone call.

The ISDN unit itself is a small box: you can plug in a microphone and headphones and link up to a radio station in the same format their studios use. On a standard phone line you communicate through a codec called G711. ISDN linkups to radio stations typically use different codecs, there are several codex typically used by commercial radio stations in the news rooms. One is called APTX while the BBC typically would use a codec called G722.

What are the top 5 benefits of having an ISDN Unit in your head office?

1. It gives you the ability to take advantage of ad-hoc media requests.This will allow your marketing or PR team to receive the call from a radio station with radio quality standard instead of doing something on Skype or on the phone. You can be use the ISDN unit when the media need to seek out leading brands to comment on a particular story and suddenly you become eligible and professional in a technical way to be able to do the interview.
2. It gives you the ability to react to breaking stories. Everyday stories break and quite often the media are looking to either find comments for that story or to evolve the story and take it in a different direction. Having an ISDN unit in your head office gives you the ability to react to the news agenda. You can do a broadcast release saying that as a result of the story your spokespeople are available for comment and if you say that you have the ability to do the interview with the quality of an ISDN line. Any journalist working in the broadcast news arena will see what differentiates you from anyone else: you are able to do quality radio interviews from your head office on whatever that story is. Thus, in addition to receiving ad-hoc media requests you can also react to the media agenda on your own initiative, allowing you to build contacts on your own merit.
3. It gives you the ability to save time. Many of our clients can’t always get to Central London, where we have our studios, or to other studios in major cities across the UK like in Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Cardiff. However, the spokespeople are quite often chief executives or highly knowledgeable people in a particular area or organisation. Time is a scarce resource and if they have to spend two or three hours travelling to one of our studios to prepare, sometimes it becomes prohibitive not from a cost perspective but from a time perspective. Having an ISDN outside broadcast unit in your office with people trained on how to use it means that some of our clients do not even need to come to our Central London studio to do interviews; they can actually do it from their own head office.
4. It gives you the chance to become pre-eminent in your industry. Quite often the media want to go to a particular expert in an industry if a story breaks. Having an ISDN unit in your office enables a consistent person to be that voice for your industry on a regular basis, which would build your reputation and credibility.
5. It gives you the ability to have multiple spokespeople. Any company needs to be able to have a backup spokesperson if their primary spokesperson isn’t available. What the GSGC5 does is to enable you to have a primary and secondary spokesperson no matter where they are. Many companies have different experts teamed with different spokespeople and a lead spokesperson who might also have different approaches on the topic (someone might be more keen on statistics and research and someone else on the theoretical background, for example). This allows you to have two benefits: the first is that it gives you the chance to be on air for a longer period of time and the second is that you have the chance to tell the same story from different perspectives thus making it more interesting and appealing to the audience. This will make it more likely that stations come to you for comment first. 

If you already have an ISDN broadcast unit:

1. What is the best way to maximise its potential? If you already have an ISDN unit and you can’t remember the last time you used it, get in contact with us at The Relations Group and we will come out with a refresher course on how you can use your ISDN unit by training you on the technical aspects of set-up and maintenance, and also how to be confident when the time comes to be on air with an interview.
2. What can you do if you have the technology but you are not getting many interviews? This usually happens because there is a lack of either relationships or know-how to communicate with the broadcast media to maximise the fact that you have the spokespeople and the technology to do a radio interview. Contact us so we can explain how to have a long term strategy to position yourself as a pre-eminent expert in your industry so that you become not only a sought-after spokesperson in your industry but also so that you can start to proactively forward plan campaigns around specific events to complement your marketing and PR strategy.

If you don’t have an ISDN Unit, what should you do?

1. You can simply go out and buy an ISDN Unit. If that is the case, I would recommend going to Glensound and purchasing a GSGC5 (get the DUAL codec option) - it costs just over £4,000.
2. At Radio Relations we have 10 of these Broadcast Units and we can install them free of charge so that you can work with us on a regular basis without you having to pay or lease these units. Thus, if you are actually doing a lot of interviews it will make sense for you to keep it until you have your own.

If you are interested in having an ISDN Unit in your head office gives us a call on 020 7158 0000 or fill out the form below. 

​The 26th of May was Local Radio Day, a day dedicated to the backbone of the radio industry. Almost a hundred local and community stations took part in the celebrations, reminding everyone that while radio can go worldwide, it starts at home, helping communities come together. 

A good local radio station is the voice of a town, giving them news that they care about, that impacts their lives. Local radio can become a fixture in someone’s day, a part of daily life in that community. Almost all of last year’s survey said if their local station was under threat, they’d campaign to save it.

With the internet, we’re more connected than ever. Global news is more visible than ever, pushing smaller local events to the side-lines. That’s one reason why local radio resonates with so many people, because it shifts the focus back onto their home, talking about things they can relate to.

With so much of local radio being focused around events and businesses in the area, it’s vital to helping continue communities grow by drawing much-needed attention to things that otherwise may not get noticed. It’s things like this that show how important local radio is to the communities that it supports, in a way that is far more personal than internet messages or emails. A radio host is someone to connect to, to listen to, and know as a unique person, even if you’ve never met them. A local radio host is a very special type of celebrity, often a complete unknown beyond the boundaries of where they live and work, but recognised immediately by their voice alone by listeners.
Local radio can be a very powerful tool for reaching a specific town or place, guaranteeing that people who hear your message will know you are interested in them specifically, and going to the effort of reaching out to them will show them they are important to you.
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You can see below our infographic detailing how important local radio is:

Because of the fragmented nature of local radio, many PR companies do not have the relationships to track down presenters of local shows. The Relations Group and Radio Relations have more than 15 years experience working with all levels of radio, and can help you harness local radio for your messages through interviews, competitions, and features while complying with Ofcom guidelines on commercial branding mentions and the BBC's own editorial guidelines. 
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For more information on the power of radio, check out our post on the latest Rajar figures to find out how radio can help your business through one of our broadcast PR campaigns. 

Call us on 020 7158 0000 or email us at hello@radiorelations.co.uk for more information.