CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jul 13, 2011

The Snowball Effect

One of the things that I'll sometimes see is a station that is simply "in the zone". They can't not hit the ball. They're, well, on a roll. The problem? It's hard to maintain it, but when you're on a roll, it can be punishing to the competition. 98PXY had about a four month roll three years ago that stood out from all the other great stuff they normally do. This was a series of "11"'s. One after the other.

And that's your goal: no down time. One thing ends, the next begins. Bang. That needs to be your goal. Your audience has the attention span of a Golden Retriever. You can't let them be mentally idle for even a minute. This relates to...

The Extreme Treehouse Makeover

Okay. I'm a geek. But if I lived in Albany, I'd have tried to enter this Fly 92 contest. Very simple. One listener was selected to have the station, a carpenter and an architect come over and build a COOL ASS tree house for their kid. Stocked with more client swag then you can shake a tree limb at. They did this right on the heals of throwing a backyard prom for a local girl whose school district wouldn't allow her and her Iraq war vet (decorated twice) go to the school dance. Bam. One homerun following closely after another. And on and on.

An Oldie But Goodie

One of the best ever cash contests is something you can get away with doing for $300 or $400 a week. "The Cash Man". "The Money Man". It's basically a training device to educate the audience (and reward them like a Skinner experiment) for answering correctly when someone asks them what station they listen to. You do it out in the community. Send out a promo person with a mini disc, they walk up to someone randomly, ask the question, and give them the money if they respond with the right answer. You make three or four different promos out of each winner and have them rotating. It sounds like you're doing $5000 a week. It's a maintenance thing. No matter what you have going on, this is always happening. Forever. It's Old School but DAMN does it work.