According to the Apple press release…

“iPod nano now has a built-in FM radio with live pause and iTunes Tagging. Live pause lets iPod nano users pause and resume playing their favorite FM radio shows. iTunes Tagging is great when users hear a song they like, they can simply tag it, and then preview and purchase that song when they sync to iTunes. iPod nano also features Genius Mixes, which automatically creates up to 12 endless mixes of songs from your iTunes library that go great together. Pod nano is also now an even better workout companion with the new built-in pedometer. iPod nano can keep track of your steps taken and calories burned, helping you meet your short and long-term fitness goals.”

Learn more about the new FM receiver features on the new iPod Nano here at the Apple website (be sure to check out their video demo).

You can follow me at: http://twitter.com/iradiosales

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, here are a few great posts: Twitter 101: Tips and Tricks - 50 Ideas on using Twitter for Business - Twitter’s Official “Twitter 101 for Business Guide”

Marketers knew an economic downturn would mean tightened budgets and more accountability for each dollar, but they may have underestimated the squeeze. When the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) surveyed marketers in early 2009, 49% of respondents expected their budgets to be reduced in the next six months. Another 43% said their budgets would stay the same. But in July–August 2009, the ANA found that 62% of marketer respondents had actually experienced budget cuts in the first half of the year. Only 32% saw their budgets held steady.

After a difficult first half, the pressure may be easing off somewhat for the rest of 2009. Marketers surveyed in summer 2009 were more than twice as likely to expect an budget increase in the next six months compared with January–February. And 39.3% of respondents were expected further cuts, compared with 48.8% in early 2009. In addition, budget reductions are getting smaller. Fewer respondents were planning cuts greater than 20%. Meanwhile, more marketers said they anticipated lesser cuts, especially reductions of 1% to 5%.

“Marketing has been dramatically altered by the current economic conditions,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. “Our ongoing series of recession surveys show that while marketers are consistently hopeful, the reality is that more tempered spending has become the new norm.”

You can read the complete article with graphs at emarketer.com.

The power of professional email marketing. Available free for radio groups on a market exclusive basis.

Have you ever wished you had a way to stay-in-touch with every one of your advertisers month-after-month without doing a thing? That almost sounds like a trick question, doesn’t it. Ever wished that as sellers come and go that you (the manager) could make sure that those advertisers could never fall through the cracks? Well, you know what? You can. And it won’t cost you a penny. And it’s done through the power of professional email marketing. The most effective form of direct marketing there is.

Watch the video and get the scoop.

Watch the video and get the scoop.

I’ve never shared anyone else’s service before, but Teaching Sells is the one I’ve personally used that can create the most substantial increase in your personal income (not radio income…personal income).

From my understanding, Teaching Sells is limited to 500 participants for their online course that takes place twice-a-year. And they’re opening up for new members on Monday morning, August 24th.

If you have skills on a particular topic that can help others (radio advertising, copywriting, management, how-to-thrive in a corporate environment, bird-house building, etc…) I suggest you look at Teaching Sells as a way to share your passion and know-how with others (and make some of your own money at the same time). It has certainly changed the trajectory of how I’m building on my six-figure income this year.

You can watch their introductory video here on Monday morning.

If it helps, here is a breakdown of the Teaching Sells program:

Choose an in-demand subject
This first step is critical. When it comes to adult education, you can’t force people to learn what you think they should learn. You’ve got to teach them what they want to learn.

Uniquely position your offer
Also critical is differentiating yourself with unique positioning in the marketplace. Whether you think about it as a USP or a purple cow, you must stand apart from the competition and be remarkable.

Create a learner/buyer profile
Who are these people you’re trying to teach? What problem or pain exists that a training program can fix? What learning styles are dominant among this group? You can’t get people to buy if you don’t know who you’re trying to reach and teach.

Identify learner benefits and ultimate benefits
Adult learners are obsessed with “what’s in it for them.” You must identify the real-world benefits that people are seeking, and the ultimate root benefits that drive the desire to learn. Very few people are willing to pay you just for the “love of learning.”

Develop learning objectives
Once you understand the real-world benefits that your prospective learners seek, you can then design your training program to satisfy those objectives. These objectives should remain firmly in mind while you develop training content.

Tie learning objectives to a business model
There’s more than one way to create a business model around commercial education. When you understand learning objectives, you can figure out what model is optimal for your specific learners. For example, will educating your members naturally lead to a purchase that you can make happen? If so, you can charge less for the initial training and attract more customers.

Research and identify content source material
Where will the content of your training program come from? Is it based on your expertise and experience? Is it based on researching, synthesizing and re-formatting multiple existing sources? Do you need to partner with a credentialed expert?

Identify potential activities and exercises
Activities and exercises are the tools you’ll use to make lessons concrete and applicable to the real-world. Or, you can provide a real-world road map that shows people how to apply the topics to achieve their goals.

Identify course topic areas
Now that you know what people are actually trying to achieve and become, you know what you need to teach. Many people get this entire process backward and start with topics they assume people need to be taught.

Develop course curriculum
Now, take your topics and weave them into an overall curriculum. Not only should your curriculum have a dominant theme, it should be telling a story that leads to understanding and action.

Select media formats for initial content
Back when you developed a learner profile based on your research of the market, you will have explored the likely desired learning style of your prospective learners. Do they prefer text, audio or video? Learning psychology demonstrates that all people benefit from a blend of media formats, so often you’ll use the format that best suits the content.

Develop introductory content
Now you’re ready to develop your training content. You’ll find it to be much easier thanks to the work you did up front, but you should also include elements that attract and hold attention while engaging learners at both an emotional and logical level in order to remain memorable. Now, will you develop the content yourself, or strategically outsource it?

Build membership site
No matter your business model, you’ll need a website with a publicly-accessible front end and a members-only back end.

Launch strategy and offer
Next, it’s time to plan the introduction of your site to the world, and figure out what offer is best for attracting paid members to a new program. No matter how many members you attract at first, you’ll be actually getting paid to teach the course. Plus, since your program is only getting better every week, you can constantly “relaunch” the site and attract more members.

Prospect marketing system
You’ll need to develop an educational content marketing strategy that attracts new prospects and builds a relationship with them over time. This can be created once and automated with an email autoresponder.

Site copywriting
What’s the appropriate selling strategy for converting prospects into paid members? Amazingly, you’ve already discovered all the benefits your prospects seek, since your training program must make those benefits achievable in order to be effective. Now it’s time to effectively communicate how your content delivers those benefits.

Joint ventures for launch
No existing audience? Develop a killer program, and others will do the pre-selling for you with an endorsement (and give you better results than advertising). You’ve located these prospective joint venture partners through your initial market research, and now your just need to strategically contact and negotiate with them.

Community development
One of the benefits of interactive learning environments is the community of learning that develops with the guidance of the instructor. Real-world benefits are why people join, and community is why they stay.

Ongoing content development
Depending on your business model, you may be creating content (or outsourcing it) on a continual basis. Or, your training may be of limited duration. Either way, it’s smart to start off with initial content, and then keep going while taking into account member feedback and learning assessments. You’ll end up with better content in the end.

Ongoing marketing
As mentioned above, any membership-based program can be “re-launched” over and over using free persuasive educational content. You can even release parts of the course itself as an attraction strategy. Remember, if your membership site is constantly adding new content, it’s constantly getting more valuable.

Learn more and watch the Teaching Sells video for more information on Monday Morning, August 24.