Radio Sales Café

Happy Friday, everyone!

This week's poll question was suggested by RSC member Jessica Norgaard of Gillette, Wyoming:

What was your station's most successful promotion in 2010?

Looking forward to reading your replies!

Our most successful promotion tin 2010 was the Taste of Home Cooking School, which was a dual station promotion with our AM and our classic hits FM sation.  We sold out the event, sold booths, ads in programs, ad space on the goodie bags that were given away to all show attendees and sold on stage exhibitors.  We heard great feedback from the exhibitors and the attendess.  Even though they scheduled our show and 2 other shows in outlying regions within 2 months of each other, it still turned out to be a great event.  It does help that Taste of Home is a well known and well respected show.  We did it in early November, which was a perfect time.  We already have people asking about when we'll be doing it again!

Besides our trade show that we do every year, I would have to say our most successful promotion is our Stuff the Bus promotion.  Each year in November/December, we team with our local bus transportation who donates us a full size coach bus and we collect donations of toys for our local ABATE(a motorcycle group) Toy Store. The Toy Store is set up for low income families to come in and pick out 3 toys per kid, for free.

 

Anyway.. We sell remotes (1 hour and 2 hour options--to fit every budget) and people bring donations to the remotes. This year was our 4th year... and the most successful yet! Every seat on the bus was full... plus the outside under compartments were packed! It was great for everyone involved... the clients got a remote with great exposure and a little warm fuzzy for doing a community based promotion, the station sold quite a bit of remotes and also had the community exposure. and it was AWESOME for ABATE! They helped 781 kids this year and that could not have been done without the Stuff the Bus promotion.

We started a promotion in 2009 called veterans salutes.  We asked listeners to send us a brief story of a veteran they know or one in their family.  The veteran can be past or present. We produced them using patriotic music and, the veteran's story and the name of the sponsor. We sell sponsorships, especially to those businesses who are not normal radio advertisers. It also helps to find business owners who are veterans themselves. We donate 50% of the proceeds to local Veterans Organizations for use as emergency funds for veterans. Our local VFW, American Legion and Marine Corps league have set up a unified fund. In 2009 we donated $1100 and in 2010 $1800.  The good PR for the stations is, of course priceless. If you decide to do this, I can provide details including contact info for the administrator of the fund.  There was no such fund until we did the promotion and later in 2009 a private individual made a big donation to the fund.  We ran it the weeks of Memorial Day, Flag Day, and the 4th of July.

Our most successful promotion was the Big Boys Toys show. we took over main street in Lake Havasu for one full day. brought in anything from motorcycles, big screen tv's, rv's, 4x4's and alot more. plus loads of food booths and nick knacks. We had over 8000 people attended. We did it twice a year one in February and one in September. This is our 7th year. Last year because of the economy we only did one. This year we are doing it end of January and are adding extreme machines. we even had beer gardens. Great money maker.

We partner up with a boat dealer and hit the lakes for Rockin The Docks! Every other Saturday in the summer months we broadcast live from a different lake and showcase a new boat. Our jocks meet and greet all the lakers and we hand out freebies on the water. We have six sponsors all paying a large premium to be involved and it's made us famous outside our core coverage area!

In October we hosted/sponsored a "Taste of Home Cooking School" and it was a huge success! It was our first time working with the TOH team and they were fantastic! We packed out the local high school auditorium (600) on a Wednesday night and had a vendor "trade show" prior to the TOHCS. 97% female participation and everybody (including vendors) wanted to know "when are you doing this again"? We will certainly bring this fantastic program to our area this Fall with expectation of doubling our capacity and selling out once again.

Taste of Home cooking schools are always fun.... our local Newspaper does it .. so we cant

Jessica......can we get some details on the promotion

 

Dave Blumer

Riverton,Wy

GAS, GROCERIES & GIFTS

Not a catchy title but effective. After all, who doesn't need all three.

Every caller has the opportunity to win $150 in prizes ($50 gas, $50 groceries, $50 gifts). If the caller doesn't respond in the specified anount of time, the next opportunity is worth $300 in prizes.   

Great Job Jessica, and what a wonderful way to help the kids out.

Sounds like an awesome idea....and someone else posted a Taste of Home event, so a popular one as well.

Thanks so much for all of the wonderful ideas.  I love the fact that we can share our stories, and help further the radio cause!!!!

 

Our best promotion would involve a cash give-away, and was called Cash Cow.  It's a 6 week promotion that our client's and listeners loved.  We sold sponsorships to 4 different locations, and with each sponsorship comes two 2 hour live remotes. promos, mentions & weblinks.  There's a two fold purpose for each remote....drive foot traffic to the client's business, and get stickers on our listener's vehicles.  The listeners would come during the remotes to have us put a bumper sticker on their vehicles, and sign up to win $500 cash.  The winner was announced on Monday morning, and the sign up process would start all over again each week.  I would also encourage my client's to run special sales or offers to maximize the remote process.  

 

Our listener's loved it for the cash, the client loved it for the foot traffic & 6 weeks of PR, and our station benefited from the sponsorship dollars, and having our bumper stickers all over the place!  It's always fun talking to new clients who see your bumper stickers everywhere!!!!  This is our 3rd year running, and has become a favorite for everyone.

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

I love this idea and will be presenting it in our next promotions planning meeting.

I attached the promotion package 1 sheeter above in my post.

Dave,

Nice - all the way around.  Kudos!

-RS

Owen,

Attached is our 2010 vet salute info including our sales flyer, our on air request for Vet info from listeners and an audio sample of our salutes.

Dave -

Super idea.  After listening to the sample though, I wondered why you chose to have an announcer read the individual's career highlights, as opposed to capturing audio from the interview by phone or in person and letting the veteran tell his own story.  It's more time-consuming and labor-intensive, of course.  But as a listener, I'd love to have heard it from the source.

Still, great idea.

Best,

Rod

Thank you for posting the info... I was grasping your idea but wasnt quite sure how to put it all together, What a great idea! And you made them very affordable too, Thanks for sharing!

Rod,

We had some folks who did their own, but a large number just wanted their vet's story out. Also had the local Army recruiter read the open and close on some. All things considered, it was very successful.

Jessica,

 

It was a pleasure selling them and I didn't mind getting paid on the net dollars instead of the gross.

If your station decides to do it, I can give you the number of the lady who is in charge of the consolidated fund.

 

I am thinking of taking a different approach with the funding. Locally during the holidays, we have an Adopt a Vetran Tree... where you take a "bulb" off the tree.. each "bulb" has a list of items a specific vet needs.By adopting that vet, you purchase presents for them based on thier needs. Every year it seems that is the tree that gets least visited as so much of the focus is on kids in need. I am thinking we could use that as a place for the funding to go to. But if we decide to do it the way you did it, I will definatly contact you! Thanks!