Radio hosts looks for two types of stories to hook the tease and audience: News stories and personal experience stories. Put your hook into a format that helps hosts see the storyline that will engage listeners and get you on air.
A teaser is a little line or two to get a listener’s attention. It might be, tomorrow we’ll have a guest who spent her childhood locked in a closet and overcame it to be a great prayer warrior, mother, and wife. It might be the teaser to get you to stay through a commercial, Our guest shared how she arrived at the dump in search of her lost treasure. When we come back we'll find out if she found it and what it was she lost. Each teaser lets the listener know there's a story that sounds intriguing. Story grabs attention.
People relate to stories and recall information cushioned in a story. You may want to pass on information more than story, but it will connect better through the power of story. I can let station hosts know I have 6 ideas to keep Christ in Christmas or I can share that I have 6 ways real moms have kept Christ in Christmas. The second pitch lets them know I can share in a story form and these are tried and true tested ideas.
For a news story, try writing it as a headline. Read news headlines and listen to them on news stations for the ones that grab your attention. You can tie information you have to a current news story or even a scandal. Here are a few ideas:
• Tie in a financial book to a news story on the rise in heating costs with a story of how intimacy keeps your love warm and lowers your costs or how your advice helped a family of seven survive the cold on a tight budget. Headline: Learn from a family of seven to prepare for rising heating costs
• Connect today’s story of a space crew preparing for blast off with a marriage book on how travelers can prepare for business separation. Headline: Three tips that would help space crew and other travelers stay connected to family while apart.
• A book on grief can be connected to today’s plane crash story of how family remembers the victims and the importance of remembering someone as part of grief. Headline: Remembering skydivers is an important step in grief; discover how to help people when tragedy strikes.
Problem solving stories
People want help with problems and stresses of life. Some of the best stories are ones that help people solve a problem. For my time book, I can pitch 7 steps to better time management or I can pitch it as a story with Karen changed her life of chaos as a mother of five to an organized one: find out how you can do it too.
Personal stories
People love true stories. So, for my time book if I know an interview would be 20 minutes or longer I pitch my story this way: Racing the garbage truck to the dump finally caused Karen Whiting to make changes that conquered her over commitment problems. This promises a humorous story and some ideas to help conquer time problems.
Stories that promise opportunity or a better life grab attention too. When I pitched my family devotional book I pitch the idea that devotions help us grow tomorrow’s adults today. Devotions improve communication skills, reading comprehension, and decision-making skills. I can use any of these ideas with a story of how a devotion helped one of my children grow up to be a better individual.
What makes a story good?
A positive story shares how a vulnerable person faced a struggle and made a life changing discovery that caused a change for the better. Thus, a story needs to have a purpose and make a point that people can apply to their lives.
• For your story, reveal your own problem and your character flaws. Be real and share your vulnerability. Do you have a soft heart that causes you to say ‘Yes” and then get over-committed and then get into a time crunch problem? If so, let people know that’s your flaw.
• Share the struggle. Describe your emotions and why you had such a hard time dealing with the problem.
• Identify your discovery that helped you change. There are two main factors that cause change: hitting bottom and knowing that you can’t go on the same way any more or a vision of what could be if you change. Change starts with a choice so let the audience know the choice you made.
• Show the outcome. Let listeners understand how you have changed, even if you are styill working on it.
Make a story a conversation for radio
On radio you are not simply a storyteller. There’s a host and if you connect to the host you will connect to the listeners. Engage the host in your story. Let the host ask you for details or share their similar struggle. Pause to let the host interact. Pause at a pivotal point so the host will want to hear more. If I told the story of my daughter’s accident on the jungle gym I would start with, Becky fell and ran to the teacher in pain. She tried to yell for help, but blood gushed out of her mouth instead of words. I pause at that point to let the audience digest what probably happened-that the problem included hurting her mouth in some way. I pause so the host can respond and ask what happened next?
As we go on I talk about the phone call I received explaining the problem and needing me to meet them at the nearby medical clinic. Then I pause to let the host ask about my emotions and reactions and panic.
Once the story is ended (for those interested Becky bit through her tongue and needed 14 stitches on a tiny military base/island where the only ay off was by boat or helicopter, but God supplied the help).
The story can flow in a few directions depending on the pitch: School safety, God’s provisions, a mother’s heart, how to help a child after an emergency, or how to cope during an emergency. End the story with the lesson you learned that will launch you into the direction you want to go with it.
The main point
is to guide the story to your point and
use it to promote your message (from your book).
When you choose a story to pitch, be sure you focus on how to use it.
A great story is engaging, but it only helps with promotion
if you end it with a connection to your product.
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