Radio Sales Café

Happy Friday, everyone!

Here's this week's poll question:

Are you doing any revenue-sharing promotions ("50% off deals" or Groupon-like promotions)?  How are they working for you?

Looking forward to reading your replies!

We have tried it and only had minimal results. Lots of work for VERY little return. We have one of the best websites locally to promote these.The first month was the best, however since then we haven't had very good results. Still have some on-line waiting to be purchased.

We did a restaurant thing last year with half off coupons for sale on our website. It generated some income, but as a whole, our  local restaurants' enthusiaism was not so good.  For my part, I was enthusiastic about it, but after the lukewarm response from restaurants, we have decided to put it on hold for a while.

We dont use Groupon or anything like that. But we do offer a program on our station we call Steve's Store.  Here is how it works.

 

 

Steve’s Store airs every Friday morning on our AM Station giving listeners the opportunity to buy products and services at bargain prices. The products or services are described and then the 2 hosts of the show take calls from listeners who are ready to buy. The station reserves the right on what to sell, when to sell it, and how much to sell it for, or if to sell the item or service at all. We start the items off at 40% off and the longer they are unpurchased, the deeper the discount. Once an item is sold, the business providing the item receives 100% of its actual retail price in "trade credit" to be used for advertising on our station. We retain the cash payment from the listener. Current rate card rates  apply to all advertising trade. Credit must be used within 90 days from the time an item sells.

 

We have been doing this for 6 years and it is VERY successful. We bill 5,000-7,000 a month on this alone. It works great for smaller businesses who cant really afford to advertise-- they build advertising credit thru this and gain customers at the same time. We have sold everything from chicken eggs, to white water rafting trips.

 We also list all of the inventory on our website (www.basinsradio.com , click on shop, then steves store---for anyone who would want to see it) so listeners can see the inventory at a glance. We allow sales all week long. Its a win win situation for everyone!  

I am looking for some ideas on any kind of promotions that you may have.

I did one in Dec. 2010 that was a big hit. I live in a community of 62k and we have around 16 radio stations here. So to get my share of the $$ in the media mix you have to be somewhat creative.

"Guess what's in it and win it"

I buildt a very large Christmas BOX, 12x12x4 and put it very high up in the air on a tella handler that I got donated to us by another company. I sold sponsorships to 12 businesses for X amount of Dollars and they each had to give me a $500.00 item. Each business had to hide something in their store's. We gave clues away each day 3 times per day about different items. It drove traffic to the business looking for the item in each store. Contestants had to go on line and put their submissions in. The top 6 winners who all "Guessed correctly" were invited to our studios as well as all the sponsor's for a meet and great. We let the sponsors draw a name with runner up prizes till we got to the one that won it all.

Not only did we get the public involved but it drove the public to the business,  to our web sites,  where they could see all the clues given as well as we placed links on our web page but we talked about it everyday on Facebook.

We did this promotion in the winter and we learned that it would have been better to make this a spring or summer event.

To keep us legal since I didn't actually put the items in the box, I took pictures of the items and put them in a envolope inside the box.

 

 

 

Absolutely a good way to go about it!!  Radio auctions have been around for many years in one form or another. The key as you stated is full retail price credit to the merchant. I have had a turn key that I call 'The Smart Shopper' for years that works very much like what you do.It's like anything eles one might do, you have to put the effort in to reap a reward.

We are launching ours next week.

This sounds really fun! Is there anyway you can send me the details on it? [email protected]

We began adding an on-line component three years ago to our 1Q Saturday morning "Auction Block" program. This gave sales a shot in the arm and added many new buyers. We gradually reduced the on-air program. Now, we're web only.

 

Our radio station websites have loyal visitors. We can promote the site and the on-line bargains as much as we want. That's where the advantages are. 

 

As with everything you must have good product and good promotion. The fewer the restrictions the better. Do NOT lower prices at the end of the month to hit goal. This will only train the audience that your already discounted price is not the best deal. 

 

You must be careful that you don't sacrifice cash for this. Competitors are out there everyday telling customers that they can trade for radio but they have to spend cash with them. 

I always remember what RAB says.

"When you advertise a sale you cut their gross twice."

I would be interested in hearing if anyone is doing a live radio auction. Also how you value your coupon and or auction items. I guess full retail value in exchange for a spot schedule is the most popular. Thanks.

 

A couple of years ago we quit the live auction and went web only. Web only has worked a lot better for us. Client gets full retail value. 

We run a website for all 7 of our stations here in the 717 area code, ironically called www.halfprice717.com This premise is simple..there is no cash investment on the part of the advertiser, they simply provide us with 100 $50 Gift cert that we then sell on the site for 1/2 price...and of course we keep all profit from that (around $2325 per offer)  In exchange we give them a radio schedule and bank of 30 second spots to promote their business...but that schedule MUST run either 2 weeks prior or two weeks after the offer drops on the site.

Every month we generate $30k + give or take depending on the quality of the offers.  And of course we do not accept offers that we know will not sell...thats like giving away $4k in free ads.