Radio Sales Café

Happy Friday, everyone!

Here is this week's poll question:

How frequently do local non-profit organizations seek your station's advertising services? What is your station's practice with regard to selling ads to non-profits (e.g., churches, civic or charitable organizations, etc.)?  Do you offer discounted rates or matching no-charge ads?

Looking forward to reading your replies!

We produce a local community calendar on-air with prerecorded and live reads (in voicetracking) along with online. We also have a 3-min slot in AMD for local people/groups we schedule to chat on air about an event, activity or situation. We see all this as critical to delivering local radio. Sometimes the AMD chat is about a fundraiser bbq, sometimes local police talking about Halloween trick-or-treat safety.
This is all free of charge. And there are so many who contact us about this that we have found we need to establish a few guidelines:
1. Private fundraisers for individuals are not aired, e.g., a spaghetti dinner for little Jimmy who needs surgery and does not have insurance. We have no way of knowing monies really go to Jimmy, are used for the surgery or that Jimmy actually needs surgery. For fundraisers, you must be a recognized local or national charity or organization and raising money for something in the community at-large - not just members of your organization.
2. We have found we have to distinguish between non-profits/not-for-profits and outright 501c(3)s. The first includes groups like the Chamber, DBAs, etc who would like to include everything from street sales and membership drives to golf outings, festivals and galas... in lieu of paid advertising. In the case of something like the chamber, they only raise money for their own overhead or for membership programs. In the case of DBA groups - these are retailers who have joined together for some kind of event to boost sales. It's super aggravating to find out that these people paid for a billboard, newspaper or tv and then clearly expect us to give them free access because we are local and/or are members of their group. I actually had one such event organizer, flabbergasted that I would not give free access to our airwaves when she acknowledged she had bought media out of market (we have no local tv) say "how could you expect the tv station to give us airtime free? They're not here in town. But you, you're local!"
3. We do not have non-profit rates. Our costs are the same regardless. And charity and non-profits are businesses. They pay rent and utilties like any business. We will bonus commercials for those who provide us logo exposure or other recognition as a sponsor of some kind, i.e., trade a sponsorship.

This said, we do a radiothon for the hospital, a live cake auction for United Way and partner with the Salvation Army year-round. We give auction items and tickets to silent auctions everywhere in our listening area.

We look at every request with a different set of eyes.  If there is some kind of "for profit" involved it needs to be paid .. we may .. repeat may .. come to the table with some extra exposure depending on the organization.  We normally air a local feature daily that is a thumb nail of various "local" event of interest to the community and that feature is sold to various sponsors.  We actually air sixof these each day and all are sponsored by local account.  Learned that trick of selling PSA's back at WVON in Chicago in the mid 60's.

Have a great start to the holiday season.

Tom

 FCC Rules and Regulations 73.1810-4  Public Service Announcement (PSA) is one which no charge is made.You can make any announcement a PSA by not charging for the broadcast.The writer that wrote that these nonprofit groups buy other forms of advertising and expect local broadcasting to give them free ads has a point. None of those people that ask for free ads, work for free. Some  broadcasters  only allow free ads to volunteer organizations that give their entire proceeds to a charity. You read of the high salaries that a number of these nonprofit workers make do you really want to contribute to their lifestyle for free?

We're in a pretty tight-knit smaller community, so we get contacted all of the time - often, two or three times a day.We actively court non-profits because we want to be a positive part of our community. Our policy is that, if a non-profit pays for advertising elsewhere (such as with the newspaper), they need to pay for advertising with us. Otherwise, we will often promote them for free. Even with paid ads, however, we will often provide bonus spots as available.

This is a BROAD category.  Just because a non-profit does not have owners or stock holders does NOT mean that they do not have needs!  Chruches...   the need the three P's...  Prayer, People and Parking.  They make a certain amount of $$ per year per person that they recruit.  So, if you provide them an average member, who stays for 5 years at $XX donation per month... how many of those do you need to get in the door for a good ROI on your schedule?

Fact is many bang the non profit drum.  Some need help and I believe in their cause....others not so much.  Some pay top dollar for ads... others may get free ads, or a match.  It all depends and is 100% subjective.  

If you ARE going to help a so-called Non Profit, loook at their board of directors.  Chance are that board is made up of some comminity movers and shakers.  Make THEM cut the ads.  Then make sure the mover and shaker gets a nightly Run Time report the night before the ads air.  Make sure the Mover and Shaker is clearly identified in the ad.  Make sure the Mover and Shaker gets the bill that shows the amount the ads cost, and the "adjustment" to $0.00  "Donation from KXYZ".  

My attitude on airing the PSA is to get the most milage out of it I can.  The chamber of commerce director doing ads for it does me NO good.  But the manager of Hom Depot doing the ads promoting it does me a LOT of good when his buddies said they heard him.

What does your cake auction look like on air?  I work with many NPO's and this sounds like it may be fun for them.

I work with many NPO's here in Omaha.  About 1/2 of my billing is from Christian churches, para church ministries, Christian schools and mission agencies.  We work by proposal and make it a win/win for both of us as they tell their story through vignettes, ads, sponsorships of some of our concerts and events as well as long form broadcasts on weekends.    We may match their buy, or offer web and an interview or Eblast features in trade.  Table sponsorship trade for our logo and info in lights, etc. are also possible.  They all have budgets.

Non-profits often have a marketing budget, sometimes more than the for profits.  We are contacted regularly and I have various options I can do for them to help them get the best bang for their buck.   We don't really have a special price, but I have flexibility with pricing for all forms of advertising for everyone.   

We don't do paid PSA ads.  Those are a waste of money in most cases.

A valuable lesson I learned several years ago at a non-profit conference is, "The key word in non-profit is profit."

We do not have a special non-profit rate. One of my biggest clients is a church. I give them the lowest per unit charge on the rate card.

Competitors are constantly telling non-profits that they cannot "give" them anything but radio can. I've actually had billing non-profits go directly to ownership and convince them we needed to "partner" (no billing) with them.