Before buying a car, you take it for a test drive. At the grocery store, they hand out samples of taste-tempting items for sale. And at the theater, there is a preview of upcoming films. Why should radio be different? Audio teases are among the most overlooked and powerful tools for radio personalities.
The Audio Tease Works
The tease has one job: To open the curiosity gap. In other words, the goal is to create curiosity without satisfying it.
The moment selected for an audio tease should be compelling enough to make the listener want to hear more, and incomplete enough that the full segment is required to get the payoff.
This is a challenge. The instinct is to select the best moment from the content (the funniest line, the most surprising revelation, or the emotional peak). That instinct is half right. A great moment should be in the tease, but it shouldn’t be the payoff. The ending belongs to the full segment. The audio needs to make your audience hungry for more.
The structure that works:
- Select a moment that raises a question, establishes tension, or reveals something interesting without resolving it. This could be a caller who starts a story, a cast member who says “and here’s the thing nobody talks about, ” or the moment of surprise.
- The listener who hears this clip has one response: What happens next? That response drives tune-in.
