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Planning
Promotions
For
our Annual Promotions Issue we asked our readers for their comments on
planning a promotion schedule for the coming year. Here are the responses:
● Half calendar items from previous
years and recurring bits tied to seasons and holidays. . .a quarter things
we hear on the road on other stations, read in trade magazines and local
newspapers. . .a quarter cribbed out of the pages of SMRN.
- David Stewart, Moving
Target Consulting Works LLC, Dallas, TX,
dallasdavidstewart@tx.rr.com
● Being a new station, we are in our
first year of making promotion plans for a new year. We have done very well
so far in finding parades and jumping in front of them. We find events that
are already taking place and make a deal to be the "official radio station"
of the event in exchange for being able to sell some sponsorships to the
radio promotion of the event. This is working great for us. We are now
gleaming calendars for events that will take place in 2008 so we can contact
them now and get involved.
We also are doing print NTR projects.
We just finished our first Coupon Book that did over $62,000 to our station.
The best part was that over $51,000 of the billing was first time
advertisers to the station. In 2008 we will do two print projects plus one
event. We are already working on them.
We are sitting down right now with a
promotion calendar for 2008 and deciding which promotion, print or event we
want to do and when. We use the standard promotion cost formulas to decide
how much each promotion must gross. Then we will sit down with the entire
sales staff and brainstorm ideas on how to make sure we do the billing that
we would have to do.
I like to calculate how much it would
cost from my promotion budget to buy the marketing promotion that the
station will get from each of these promotions and add that to the gross of
the promotion. If we are asking advertisers to participate because of all of
the promotion they are getting in the print project, advertising for the
promotion or at the event, I should be willing to credit that amount to the
station also.
- Joe Pedicino, WEKS,
Newnan, GA,
jpedicino@yahoo.com
● The cluster sales manager in each of
our two clusters and I review what we did in the way of on-the-street
promotions the previous calendar year - what worked, what didn’t work, and
what we should continue to do, change or eliminate. We really don’t change
much; after 12 to 15 years of owning my two clusters, we usually just fine
tune what we’ve done.
Our telemarketer in each cluster has a
master calendar of local events, plus events we’ve sold before that we’ve
gotten from the Small Market Radio Newsletter, and from
Grace Broadcast
Sales. Again, we fine tune and pretty much do the same thing. We use
four or five of Grace’s features in both clusters each year, and it’s nice
to play a sample for a client down the phone line as part of the pitch.
- Randal J. Miller,
Miller Media Group/Regional Radio, Taylorville, IL,
rjm@randyradio.com
●
For
planning of NTR and on-air promotions, a.k.a. sales promotions, our
programming and sales managers and promotion manager meet once every
quarter to come up with new ideas, as well as to go over what worked
well for all involved in the past ... and toss out things or concepts
that really didn't go over well sales- or programming-wise, or both!
Sometimes, someone comes up with a good idea that we shelve way out into
the future, when the best time for the promotion comes up.
- Rick Sellers, KMRY,
Cedar Rapids, IA,
r.sellers@kmryradio.com
● Our stations have a annual
strategic planning meeting late in the year, where we go over the
previous year's strategic plan. We have on hand the entire sales staff,
the PD, the GM and SM. This is a half-day meeting.
This is where we share and discuss
new promotions/packages, and also discuss if we are dropping anything
from the previous year.
We have the Chase Calendar
items with us from SMRN, and we bring along any other new
promotions that caught our eye during the past year from SMRN or
other places.
- Jim Bartels, KNUU AM/FM, New Ulm, MN,
jbartels@kduz.com
●
We have many promotions that we do each year.
These are annual events. By the end of September we know our plans for
the next year. I talk to our staff about the theme, date and any changes
that need to made. Being a small market radio station, planning the
events is not that difficult. Right now I am working on our Valentine's
Day promotion.
A couple of fun things we have done for the
past 9 years are our turkey and ham contests. We have a "Radio Barn"
with five barn doors. Our listeners have to call in and choose one of
the doors. The turkeys and pigs (hams, move around every day. The
listeners never know where they will find them. We use lots of sound
effects. It's fun. We give away 12 turkeys and 12 sugar-cured hams every
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
A non-money-making event is our annual
School Supply Drive. We are able, each year, to give about $3,000 in
school supplies to all the grade schools in Beaverhead and Madison
Counties.
We will start our annual Coats for Kids and
Families drive next week. For a small area, we do well. We usually
receive around 450 coats, in all sizes, for our communities. Our
communities really support our efforts. In fact, they look forward to
getting involved. That is one of the blessings of living in Montana.
We have many money-making promos, too!
- Jo Ann Juliano, KBEV & KDBM,
Dillon, MT, joann@kdbm-kbev.com
●
Our next year's promotions are a year-round
process. For example, when September sales promotions are completed for
the current year, We review the success of the promotions for that
month, look back to previous years of other promotions we did in that
month and make the decision on what promotions will be on the calendar
for the next year in September. We always keep an eye on new things that
come up before next year and add or subtract as needed.
The main reason we do real-time planning
for the next year 12 months ahead: I believe it helps the sales staff
keep their eyes on the ball just in front of them (which is selling for
the current period). This does not mean we are not goal-oriented for
annual sales; we do this by increasing the sales potentials for
promotions and annual contracts.
By doing the process on a monthly basis,
the ideas and thoughts are fresh in our mind so we can put together a
solid promotional plan for the comng year. In the past, planning all the
promotions for the 12 months ahead sounded like a good idea when planned
in November-December, but by taking a look at what was successful the
previous month we know what worked, why and why not and what we need to
do better.
- Beaver Miller, WCCI,
Savanna, IL, beaver@wcciradio.com
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