CPR Promotional Check-Up - Apr 9, 2013

Cry For The Camera, Honey

Looking beyond prom, when is your next opportunity to do a great warm and fuzzy for teens? ("warm and fuzzy teens" is the ultimate filter tester) Graduations. It's an Ode To Parenthood to throw a great party for your graduate. But with unemployment, this might not be possible. So play off Christmas Wish. Find a parent who would love to surprise their kid with something that the kid is not expecting: a big ass grad bash.

Only Clifton...

We were doing a radio station that was up against a monster with a big buck contest. So he ran a promo with listeners talking about how the music on the other station sucked and their DJ's sucked and it was horrible that they would have to sit through all of that just to play the big contest. So our station made it easy and painless: we listened for you and announced when you had to call and win from them.

At one point 1/3 of their winners were our listeners. They (the other station) went berserk. Our guys ran actual winner promos of our listeners thinking us for helping them win off "them" without having to sit through the crap music and the crap talent. We text and email listeners when their favorite song is about to play...why not text them and tell them when to call and win off the competition?

Street Marketing

PPM. Not PPM. Right now you should be...

• ...recruiting interns. How many? For a market like Minneapolis, I'd say 30 or 40 for a CHR or Country station. Because you'll lose them starting almost immediately and you'll stagger into Labor Day with 6 or 7 "keepers".
• Wired in Saskatoon did one of the best recruitment nights I've experienced. They got them all together and like Freshman Orientation Week, subjected them to games, talent contests and other acts of humiliation. Why? Because they were looking for kids with so much personality that it literally oozed from their pores.
• You need a leader. At Mix in KC, they made it this hard-ass Promo Coordinator who so thoroughly scared and intimidated the kids that it sucked the life out of the team. You want someone who can be fun and inspire them and be with them through the long boring drudgery and when they need a lift, be able to take the initiative to do something fun. But also be able to slap their hands when they screw up.
• You need info. If you have a vacant room at the station, turn it into the War Room. Cover the walls with maps. You need a list of when every prom is going to occur. Every graduation lock-in party. All the beaches. The parks. The clubs. The amusement parks. Fitness clubs. Malls. Cineplexes. Community pools. Every place where you can find a listener to court, romance and win.
• You need a General. He/she is in charge of finding the places where the team goes. Not just handing them a key and saying, "Go drive around." (Which is still way better then having the vehicle sit in the lot.) Also, at most stations, when there is a problem with a vehicle, who do they tell? The engineer. As if he knows auto mechanics. The General is the person who needs to be informed when something is not working. Immediately. So it can be fixed.
• Teach the kids to make calls. If you're not getting calls from the streets, then you're not out there. KLUC in Vegas and Wired in Philly piggyback calls. Sounds? Huge.
• You want to do Street School and train them in. And give them their names for the summer. At NOW in NYC we just did it. And surprisingly none were too profane. As opposed to Pubey and Bitchtina at Q-104 in Halifax.
• If you do your jobs correctly, these kids will have equal visibility with the airstaff. They should have their own section on the website.
• Make sure you're set for banners. Wooden stakes. The vehicles should serviced. You want speakers for parades. Blast the sidewalks. Who knows? Might be some people with little meters standing there.
• The vehicles should never ever leave without coolers of iced down softdrinks. Don't get caught up in the mindset that "We need to have swag for everyone." If it's 90 and you're at a park or pool, a cold can of Diet Coke is a nice thing to get for free.
• Most state departments of tourism will have a website or publication that will list every parade, festival, fair and community celebration. Figure out your rated area...and be at EVERY one of these things. Most stations screw up and only focus on the metro. Uh...stupid. If you worked in Charlotte, you wouldn't ignore the people in Kings Mountain. Forty miles away...and they get diaries. In fact, it's easier to fish for them in the smaller communities.
• Yes. You will have remotes. Vehicular Management. You can be in two or three places at once.

So, there ya go. Just a short list to get you started ("smile face" is assumed)