RELENTLESS RADIO

 

Author:	Jerry Williams
Published:	October, 2001

 

In part 1 we discussed the importance of outside marketing, that is, promoting your station through media other than your own air. We looked at the three major media radio has traditionally used, Television, billboards, and direct mail. Each has advantages. Each is expensive. In part 2 we'll take a look at several alternatives to traditional marketing, guerilla marketing if you will. These tactics are much less expensive than the big three. They are also much less effective at reaching large numbers of potential new listeners. The tactics we'll explore here will work best when used consistently and in some combination. Your results will be greatly multiplied if you are able to employ them as part of a larger marketing strategy that includes at least one of the traditional media. Get Into The Churches Christian radio enjoys one huge advantage over any other music format. The people who are most predisposed to listen to our stations gather in large numbers on a weekly basis. In most markets a significant increase in listening from the church population would be enough to generate a significant increase in ratings. Sadly, even among those who regularly attend church, there is an extremely low level of awareness of Christian radio. Here are three tactics for gaining exposure inside the church. Church Contacts In almost every church in your market there is at least one person who loves your radio station. They listen regularly, attend your concerts and remotes, and participate in your contests. They are likely very active in their church as well. You need to find these people in your market and leverage their enthusiasm about your station and their involvement at their churches to expose you to potential new cume. Once you have found them (this can be as simple as running some promos or liners asking this type of person to contact your promotions director), organize them. Invite them to a party at the station. Tell them you need their help to spread the word about the ministry of your station. Commission them as ambassadors of your station at their respective churches. Give them each a T-Shirt and pack of CDs at that first meeting, and be sure to load them up with station literature, bumper stickers, program schedules, newsletters. Have them get permission to keep their churches well stocked with your material. Start a newsletter especially for this group of Church Contacts so they're the first to know about new contests, music, concerts, and promotions. As your representatives at their churches it's important that you keep them informed about what the station is doing. And being the first to get this information will make them take this responsibility more seriously. To keep their interest high have them gather at least twice a year to exchange ideas on how they're promoting your station in their churches. Make sure you give them tangible expressions of your thanks several times throughout the year, such as new releases from their favorite artists or backstage access at select concerts. Sunday School Blitz You want people talking about your radio station. You can get an entire church buzzing, and you can do it in 10 minutes. Promote on air or on your website that you want to visit an adult Sunday School class in every church in your market, or use your extensive network of new Church Contacts to generate a list of Sunday School classes. Each Sunday send out a team of two with enough coffee and donuts for a class. Your team comes in at the beginning of the class and serves the refreshments, pouring coffee and juice and distributing the donuts. Make it a party; be sure to bring balloons and bright colored cups and plates and napkins. You give each class member a little goodie bag with a station key chain, etc. You give a special gift of music or a book to the class member who made the initial contact, the teacher, and leave one for the pastor. If you plan this campaign well you can partner with a local bakery, supermarket or coffee shop and trade the food. Your sales staff may even be able to generate some revenue from key clients for inclusion of their samples or coupons in the goodie bags. If you really get behind this program you can hire a few part timers to team with air staff members so you can blitz multiple Sunday school classes each week. Speakers Bureau Churches are always looking for special speakers, whether it's for a Wednesday evening, Sunday school class, men's breakfast, or Sunday morning service. Make it known that your staff is available to speak for any occasion. Take care in assigning air staff to appropriate events. And don't overlook non-air staff members, especially your GM. Staff members should be able to do a basic Bible study or share their testimony. Make sure that every time they speak they're dressed appropriately, wear a nametag with your logo, and use a portion of their time to share about the ministry of the radio station. Get Into The Community There are thousands of potential listeners at large in your community. Some of these people are honestly seeking the truth, peace, and meaning in life that your station, more than any other in your market, can point them to. But they're not going to listen if they don't know you exist. Here are a few ideas for gaining exposure among the population at large. Family Fun Patrol If your station has a van you need to have it out for more than weekend remotes. Call it the Family Fun Patrol and whenever there's a community event, an arts show, county fair, or kids soccer game, have your van there. Keep it stocked with bumper stickers and premiums like key chains or refrigerator magnets. Have your sales staff secure sampling opportunities with soft drink and snack companies. Bumper Stickers Several Christian stations have made effective use of bumper sticker campaigns. There are two keys to having a successful bumper sticker campaign: distribution and value. Your bumper stickers have to be readily available and you have to give people a good reason to stick them on their bumpers. Partner with local Christian bookstores and other retail outlets for distribution, promising on air mentions when you tell people where they can get the stickers. Make your stickers more valuable (and less expensive for you) by selling coupon space on the back of the stickers. Combine your Family Fun Patrol appearances with your bumper sticker campaign. Make those appearances sticker spotting occasions, awarding prizes or cash to listeners who display your stickers on their cars. Morning Show Breakfast Tour Every neighborhood in your market has a hot breakfast spot. These are the places where the locals congregate to catch up on the gossip or grab a cup of coffee on their way to work. This is where your morning show needs to be. On a weekly or monthly basis have your morning show broadcast live from one of these breakfast spots. Promote it heavily on air so that you get a heavy listener turn out. Invite local civic and government leaders as well as local celebrities to be on air guests. Work with the venue to have a breakfast special with a price that reflects your frequency. Guerilla Appearances Get out your latest Arbitron and look at the stations you share the most cume with. If there's a station or two that you share 25% or more of your cume with you need to assign a staff member to monitor that station or stations. Have that staff member make note of any appearances, remotes, or events that station is having. Then simply make sure your station van is in the general vicinity at the time of your competition's event. Have your van well stocked with bumper stickers, T-shirts, and other station merchandise. Offer listeners who have one of the competition's T-shirts a swap for one of yours. Results By utilizing any of these tactics, whether individually or in some combination, you will expose your station to potential new listeners. The advantages of these guerilla tactics over the more traditional outside marketing tactics are two fold: cost and personal contact. While even the most modest direct mail campaign will cost you tens of thousands of dollars, the guerilla tactics we've suggested here will run several hundred at most, and in some cases will even generate revenue. And even the most carefully crafted TV spot can't match the personal touch of meeting your morning show host face to face. Where these guerilla tactics fall short in comparison to traditional marketing is in the number of people you can expose to your station through the use of each type. The guerilla tactics will expose your station to anywhere from a handful to a few thousand people at a time. A TV campaign in even a medium sized market can expose you to hundreds of thousands of potential new listeners. So get out the calculator, crunch your budget numbers, gas up the van, and put together a marketing strategy designed to expose your station to the largest number of potential new listeners using the tactics you can afford.

 

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