Radio Sales Café

Looking for idea's on selling schedules to small businesses that have very limited dollars.. Example, had a realtor that wanted to promote their business. They only have $300 a month. Suggested one of our smaller stations, but they want the flagship station! I don't want to take the money if I can not get the frequency needed and they cancel saying radio doesn't work! ideas?

Hi Susan,

I've been down this road before with clients, a good friend on mine owns two smaller AM's in the SF Bay Area market and I used to sell for him.

What is the format of your flagship? What's their goal with the campaign? How do they perceive the value of radio against their budget?

Off the top of my head (without knowing the format), you may want to look at matching them up with 10 second traffic, weather or news sponsorships to get them the frequency they need within that budget. There's also text messaging, if you guys are doing that. If not, one of my clients has a program specifically built for radio stations for just this type of situation.

Good luck, I hope this helps!

RC

Two solutions:

(1) build their war chest, then, come back to the game when they can swing a bigger bat

(2) Own a day a week or own a daypart -- makes them sound much bigger with a limited ad budget

You're absolutely right to advise your client to get as much frequency for the ad budget they have. Without the frequency, their campaign will fall flat.

If they cannot afford to own a week, have them own a day or daypart.

Hope that helps.

Mike Copeland
WFSH, Atlanta

Susan,

I believe it's important that your prospective client "own" something - whatever will provide the most repetition for the money, like a news or weather sponsorship 5 days a week. If the prospect can't afford morning drive, own something in the evenings, even overnight when rates are generally dirt cheap. Yes, there are fewer listeners, but the ones you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition are still consumers, right?

Speaking very broadly, I believe that a listener follows more-or-less the same routine during the work week (Mon-Fri), a different routine on Saturdays, and a different routine on Sundays. In the case of your realtor prospect, Saturdays tend to be important days for showing homes, holding open houses, etc. Perhaps running several commercials within the same hour or two on a Saturday morning would be appropriate.

HTH...

-Rod

I recently went to a conference where the speaker stated one of the way she had increased the budget of some smaller clients is by using their charity budgets. Most small businesses donate several hundred dollars to different charities throughout the year. She suggested that when the boys scouts came calling instead of handing them a hundred dollars she would give them 20 radio spots with our station. she would write the number of spots on the back of her account executives card and give it to them. They would contact the account executive and the spot would be "Jane Doe with preferred properities loves the blah blah community and supports the boy scouts of america she would like you to do the same by attending their pancake breakfast this Saturday and 9am and the american legion on B street and remember if you are looking to buy or sale a property call jane doe" Anyway you get the picture.
The client would figure how much they spend each year in charitable contributions and they would basically get a bank of ever how many spots that amount would buy to be used throughout the year.
Hope this helps