Happy Friday, everyone!
This week’s poll question comes from Alta in Quincy, IL. Alta writes, “We expect our clients to have a marketing plan and budget, and hope they use at least part of it to buy advertising from us. But what about us? Shouldn't we market ourselves?
"One of my goals for 2013 is to market my business. I have some ideas (a Facebook business page, advertising in my local Chamber of Commerce's newsletters, for example). I would love to know how you market yourself, and what has been most successful for you. Thank you!”
So – how do you market yourself?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
Great question.. At PrintandRadio.com, we do a lot of SEO to promote ourselves nationally- in addition to the social media like Facebook and Twitter. We plan on investing more time on Linked In , as their new options is perfect for B2B. Here is to a wonderful 2013~
A monthly or quarterly newsletter has worked for me for years. I don't use Facebook or social media to market myself, although I do have a Facebook account for friends, family, church, etc. You can use Constant Contact, but I use Mailchimp.com because you can have up to 1000 names in a database and use it free! Check out Mail Chimp. Take the tour. You can easily upload a list of people you want to send a newsletter to, and they have a lot of templates, so you can make it look very professional. Have fun!
I am learning to use Social Media to market myself. Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn and Twitter thus far. It is a process and takes time and effort. While most of those in Social Media may or may not live and work in your individual marketplace, some do. Showing that you are willing to utilize digital also lets your prospective and current client know you are embracing this new method to help brand yourself. Spend some time reading online how the Social Media experts make it work.
Great subject! I've always started with an internal gut check on my mission and how I want to be perceived. For me, marketing myself is all about tapping into resources that I can in turn leverage to burnish my brand as a value-added marketing partner. I believe that knowledge is power and that business intelligence is a currency that differentiates me from my colleagues in the field. When I deal with C level or group account supervisors or ground level marketing managers, my goal is to always be able to tell them something they don't already know that's meaningful to them. And even if I miss, the fact that I was aware of some key industry issue, I still reinforce the Larry Jennings brand.
I also use email marketing for a monthly AE newsletter. I always feature a commercial-of-the-month I have produced for a client, so they hear my work. I balance it between station initiative content and feature stories of interest to a business owner. I try to stay away from total "sales-oriented" material, so I don't lose them. Typically, I get an open rate of 60 percent and higher. Those that don't have "images" turned on in their email client don't measure stats in my email analysis tools, so I have to do additional analysis of my web server logs. If you are the featured client commerical for the month and you click on the link to hear the audio, you win a free gift card for lunch at Panera Bread. I've done this for 5 months and have only had one "unsubscriber." And sometimes, out-of-the blue, I'll stop by with pastries from our best bakery and leave quickly. Always scores well.
I think this is a GREAT question! We SELL advertising... but do we believe in it enough to BUY advertising?
I invest HUNDREDS of dollars per month on advertising in magazines, on bus benches and bus ads, bathroom stalls, television, billboards and of course on our radio station. I would buy ads on the other station too, but they will not sell ads to me for some reason! ;o)
We have experience growth like I have never seen! I can tell you... ADVERTISING WORKS!!
We have even encouraged our listeners to get our logo as a real tattoo! It's worked 127 times so far! (not kidding)
See the photos on our website...
Thanks
John Small
Sunny Radio
Not sure if you are a radio station owner talking about marketing your station(s) or a salesperson talking about enlarging your business contacts and sales...?
As a radio station you have unlimited access to your own airwaves - a lot of stations do not use that access the way they probably should. For a station event, e.g., bridal show, we run 18-20x/day 12m-12m M-Su 45 days up to the event plus 'bridal week' features the week up to the event. 1 of the 3 stations we have sponsors this event - airtime (not as heavy a schedule) runs on all 3 stations. This frequency works. This frequency builds excitement. We have talked to a number of radio people in other markets that seem surprised we would run that frequency for anything. Our feeling is that if we won't do it for a signature event for ourselves, why would we ask a car dealer, retailer or anyone else to do the same for their event?
We run station promos for everything we do, every feature, every co-sponsorship, everything. We have studio sheets changed weekly with station and community activity for that week for live read. We have studio sheets for live read on regular programming features. We run sales recruitment advertising. For morning shows. For the sports we carry. We maintain websites, facebook and twitter. We have a lot to talk about and we use our own airwaves because it works and because we demonstrate for clients our own expertise in promotion by doing this. All of this runs 24-7. We have not started it yet but plan on having salespeople voice commercials about what they do for their clients, "call me if you would like to work with me"-type of thing. This was suggested to us by another radio person.
We have tried direct mail, newspaper, outdoor and cable (we have no local tv station). This has not had the impact that our self-marketing has.
We are looking at an electronic billboard for the front of the (2) property locations.
Sponsorships and co-sponsorships put you out in the business community. Tying in with shows - like community expos - puts you in front of advertising clients and listeners. Some Chamber activities can do that, too. Involving clients in station promotions that embrace community issues does the same - fundraising for the library with hosted mini-remotes, safety reflective Halloween bag distribution, that kind of thing. We host a live United Way cake auction on-air - most of the cake contributors are local business people who come in and talk about their donation to drive up bidding.
If I misunderstood and promoting yourself as a salesperson is your real question, Alta, remember to ask your current clients for referrals. Joining local organizations can widen your business contexts, too. You are always a welcome member because they like to employ you for access to the radio stations and your knowledge of promotion.
As a rule, media companies, ad agencies, etc. are among the worst at self promotion. We should be doing everything we tell our clients to do.
We have vehicle wraps and shamelessly cross-promote our stations and websites. We have weekly newsletters and use twitter and facebook with client specials.
We are adding billboards and TV.
Alta
a great question, all the answers are also right on.
This has been always a bug bear of mine with many radio companies I work with and have worked on.
Not enough marketing of the benefits of advertising.
Experienced broadcasters like Joel understand this.
I always coach my team that in radio you have 2 customers listeners, and advertisers. Marketing to listeners is critical to the success of any radio company, but many forget to market to advertisers. I recommend among other things the need to position your sales division jut like the programmers position the audience. If you play the hits of 70s 80' and beyond, then what is your positioning statement for the sales team? Or going one further, how do you position YOU.
Worth thinking about.
Best of luck
Mike
Hello Everyone,
Reading all of your answers helps me as I am about to embark on this journey of radio sales. I am supposed to start my position this week after conducting four interviews. As of now, I am only waiting for the manager to email me the "contract". To try and answer this question, I can say marketing yourself is all about branding ourselves as the expert in our industry...or at least a leader in our industry.
This can be done by creating our own blog, youtube channel, Facebook Fan page, and other source of building an online presence. A few years ago I had a blog that had lots of content. This blog was all about personal development, internet marketing, and MLM. I let the domain expire. I was not making any money at all and after hours and hours of writing blog posts, making videos, and time on Facebook I gave up because of no results. I was paying out more than what I was making. I do still have a YouTube Channel that is up and you will find many different videos.
It peaks my interest to start another blog that will brand myself as a radio sales leader but only after time and experience on the job. My question is how can a blog about myself help create more leads for business especially since my sales job is for my local area and not internationally speaking. Please share your feedback and I truly appreciate all of you!
David
IF we truly believe what we say to customers about why they should advertise, then we should also be doing the same for ourselves. People DO need to know you before they need you. To that end, I believe that we need to set ourselves up so that when we walk in the door, people say "I know you"!
If each of us were to write an elevator speech about who we are and what we do, and get THAT on the air, imagine how powerful that would be. BUT, many will fall into the trap:
"Hi, I'm suzy and have been helping businesses grow in the XXX area for over 15 years.....
What we need to do is come up with compelling relevant statements that get people to WANT to talk to us.
Here is my latest:
Hi I’m Chris Rolando, President of Murphy Broadcasting and I want to share with you a few seconds of thoughts on advertising. Advertising sales people will tell you that it is important to keep your name out there, or you should use advertising to change opinions. Here’s a hint... advertising done for these reasons is a waste of your money. Think of this for a second. If someone had a lousy experience with a business... nothing you can SAY will change their opinion. What you really need is a chance to get this person BACK to your business so you can SHOW them that their misconception may be unfounded. This means a whole different kind of marketing... finding a way to invite your best targeted customer through the door, so they can have the EXPERIENCE, which, if you are doing your job correctly, should then change their attitude. So now it comes down to the offer you make to get them through the door so you can dazzle them. Once you have figured out WHAT that is, THEN you start thinking about HOW to advertise to them. I’m Chris Rolando.
