Radio Sales Café

Maitaining yield in a tough economic environment is always challenging. We operate in a failrly competitive market. We have five stations - 2 national, 2 local and 1 regional. Our ratings are excellent but some of our brands have greater competition than others. So maintaining yield is certainly more difficutl for some of our stations.

 

How do you maintain your yield, when your nearest competitors are offering huge discounts and there is not a huge difference in ratings?

 

Ideas/suggestions welcomed!

When you say the ratings are about that same, I am thinking you mean share/TSL etc. But what about the capability of each station's listeners to afford your clients product/service? Would it be to your advantage to set your stations apart that way? You can also provide better creative - a campaign that touches emotions and relates to the client's target prospect. And be a bit over-the-top to get attention. I don't mean with yelling and screaming and needless production elements - but with ideas. If you'd like, shoot me a client example and I am happy to provide some ideas just for the challenge of it (i.e. no charge). Best to you! Neil www.VoiceCreative.com

Our market tends to use weekly reach when selling metrics but we will use other metrics depending on where the advantage is for us. Broadly speaking, there isn't a big difference in the numbers and demographics. Our competitor has a similar format etc.

However, we talking about the difference of approximately €50 for a 30 second spot rate i.e our competitors are charging maybe €60 a spot vs our €110. Our competitor is discounting by as much as 70%!

We are currently working with our promotion/marketing/programming teams to identify some really added value but in this economic climate, clients are very price focused.

We are exploring including a digitial proposition in our offering while also not devaluing our spot advertising. There is alot of excitment around apps and we are looking at possibly partnering with a app developer. early days yets.

Appreicate your advice and will take you up on the offer of looking at a client.

One in particular is a shopping centre - the cities biggest shopping centre and deciding on pre xmas spend.

Many thanks

Nuala

Great, I look forward to more details. And I'll share a spot we did a couple years back for a shopping center. This was for Mother's Day, but the concept can work for the holidays, too.

I tell clients that rates are not set arbitrarily. It's all about the law of supply and demand. If you're reaching more people, that's more potential customers you can help drive through the door than your competition which is reaching fewer people.

Love it!