CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jun 27, 2023

Programming Helping Sales. What A Concept.

Hubbard in Minneapolis and iHeart in DC both do weekly meetings where people are invited, not required, to come, hang out, talk, brainstorm and see if there is anything happening in the market that they might be missing.

I don’t see Sirius doing this.

Herb Ivey at Townsquare in Portland, Maine shares this idea. It’s so obvious, so simple. But truly great:

here’s something we do in Portland that has helped a ton. We have a daily “creative meeting”…9:30a. We have Brand Managers-Promotions Managers- and a rotating cast of creatives...digital people, personalities, etc. We will talk creative stuff for our 5 brands for that day….imaging, blog posts, social, but we STOP when a salesperson comes in to give them our full attention. Then we help them with a promo idea…even campaign and copy ideas BEFORE they hit the street. That’s the key. So often, we’re jamming the square peg in the round thingy because we’re dealing with decisions already made. The way we do it, the salesperson leaves with a better idea that Programming has already approved and usually absorbs into the station brand much better! It also breaks down the wall between sales and programming…so important. With local sales, it’s often more about the great copy or promo idea than something ratings-based that gets the buy. Sales knows we have their back as we are a source for ideas for them! And programming people love it when an idea they came up with pops for a client.

This 9:30 meeting might last 5 minutes or 30. And your newsletter is usually up on my screen to help. But sales knows where to find us for logistics and ideas every day. I find it much more effective than the old-school weekly 90 minute Promotions Meeting where after 25 minutes everybody wants to jump out of a window.

Car Testimonials

So, the first thing I heard when I turned on the rental cars’ radio on Saturday was a DJ saying that her friend the head salesman at such and such a dealer in honor of Custom Appreciation Day…

Listeners believe that you have friends like Lady and Katy and Kenny and Bruce…but why would you hang out with a guy who wears polyester and tries to sell you undercoat that you don’t need? “My friend” translates to “Some guy who is paying me to say this” and the audience knows it.

We were discussing car testimonials that other day. They all blur together. Who likes cars more than anyone? Dogs. So what if you did car testimonials by the morning guy’s dog. Video testimonials of the dog enjoying the ride, hanging out the window, catching the breeze. If my dog loves a car, that is a big deal. You COULD dub it like the “tease video” where the guy taunts his dog with food that he’s already eaten.

Fitness Clubs, Diet Plans & Health Food

Just as exciting as a DJ talking about a car they get to ride and get paid to talk about, is a DJ talking about how much weight they’ve lost. What if you got an overweight listener and did this in reverse.

Camp (Insert Station Name or Morning Show)

The formative summers of my formative years were spent on the sandy shores of Bond Lake in northern Wisconsin. First as a camper and later as a counselor at Camp Jackpine. Oh the fun. Oh the bonding. Oh the camp doctors’ daughter. Before I get off on a tangent about a 13 year-old girl who was getting into bars that none of us could “pass” for or get into, let me get back on track.

Many summer camps will close the second week of August. And many of them are available for rental for private groups or families or organizations once their main season is over. Why not take 25 families, rent a camp and take the radio station live to this location for the last week of summer. Or at least the last weekend, ie: Labor Day?

The closest I’ve ever seen a station come to doing this was what WIOG in Saginaw did for Fourth of July weekend last year. The people in that market flee north to “the woods” on three day holiday weekends. So if that’s where the audience was, the station, rightly, decided that that was where they needed to be. And they were. They went and did the entire three days live from the campground at a statepark. Huge. Very tapped into the lifestyle of the audience.