MARKETING WITHOUT A BUDGET Chris Byrnes One of the challenges you may be facing in the new millennium is how to effectively promote the benefits of listening to radio with smaller and smaller marketing budgets. This has forced some operators to simply give up, while others try to "move the needle" by coming up with innovative ways to generate awareness. Here then are a few suggestions to act as thought starters. Word of mouth: There are those who believe that word of mouth marketing can be more effective than the more traditional forms of marketing. A great example of this can be found on the big screen. One of the biggest movies of 2002 was totally unknown when it was released back in April of this year. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" has taken the tortoise route and steadily become one of the most profitable movies of all time. It has remained in the top ten box office earners for the past 29 weekends and is on target to gross $185 million dollars. Not bad for a movie that cost less than $20 million to make! And it wasn't courtesy of a huge ad campaign, fast-food tie-ins, or Internet hype. Its success can be chalked up to good old-fashioned word-of-mouth.
I've seen some data that indicates "word of mouth" marketing is as much as a thousand times more powerful than conventional marketing. The theory is that we are exposed to about 5,000 sales messages a day. But how often do you respond to one of these communications? It takes you thousands of exposures to result in one action. But what if a friend calls you up to recommend a product - a movie, a restaurant or even a radio station? On average, you'll respond to that recommendation 20 percent of the time. In other words, a friend's recommendation - word-of-mouth - is many times more effective than conventional marketing.
Listener Database: I strongly believe radio stations need to develop a listener database, and take advantage of the traffic that's coming to your web site. The latest Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet study shows that a high percentage of a radio station's Preference One (P1) listeners regularly visit that radio station's web site. Providing you know the secrets of how to drive increased listening to your radio station from your web site you can get an edge especially if you are in an "at work" perception battle.
Other Forms of Visibility: Here's a cute idea from one of my old stations in New Zealand. They took a normal every day sign seen in lots of mini vans and cars and reworked it. They give them out at station events and via their station web site to get them in the cars of the station's true fans, which turns into a mobile billboard for the radio station. These signs are in cars all over the market
The Power of Email: Does your station have an e-mail newsletter? Do you include information of interest and value in that e-mail - stuff the audience might want to get and might pass around? In that newsletter, do you plug specific on-air events coming up on the station (the way actors plug their movies on Leno and Letterman)? Do you do what's outrageous - stuff that makes a good story? Do you give listeners an incentive to "spread the word" and "convert" others? Two years ago NASCAR decided to use e-mail as one tool to generate awareness for their sport. Average attendance in 2002 is up 22% and Fox is enjoying their best ever ratings for the sport now that all the races are on the one channel. Fox also do a great job of promoting the races on television and they are aggressively using radio with extremely well written and produced commercials that demand even the casual fan to check out the upcoming race.
Real People Promoting You: The other tool to consider is listener testimonials. A testimonial is "word-of-mouth in a can" and done right will accelerate the spread of experience with your station and reduce the risk of wasting the listener's time on a station they may not like. To be effective and credible it must be real, and ideally it should be independent of your station. Employees don't do testimonials. Bribes don't produce testimonials. Testimonials work because they look, feel, smell, and taste REAL. You should be the MASTER of testimonials in your market both on the air and in external marketing.
Street Visibility: Sometimes the best way to promote an intangible product such as radio is to develop ideas that act like marketing with a promotional payoff. A clever stunt, or taking ownership of a big event, can generate amazing publicity. Having a distinctive promotional vehicle and being everywhere your target listeners are likely to be, is also a tactic that works well. The "living billboard" is another example. Speaking of billboards K-Rock in Edmonton has done an amazing job of building a strong image for their rock station using this medium. They achieved this using a few well placed billboards with a strong message and powerful visuals. In the spring of 2001 K-Rock put up their "nuts" campaign which got the most attention of all their efforts. It appeared to shock a large portion of the city, who responded with a vocal and organized campaign against the station. TV and newspaper coverage was phenomenal. Letters, phone calls, and e-mails were non-stop. Of course the station's listeners loved the campaign and thought all the publicity was clever. The billboard, according to Advertising Standards Canada, is the single most-complained about piece of advertising in their history. Not surprising, they ordered it taken down after a hearing process that took up 7 of the 8 weeks of the billboard's run. Shortly after the board came down, the Tudor Glenn Vet Clinic contacted the radio station about securing their permission to use the artwork on their billboard. The station agreed, as long as it retained complete creative approval on the final product. The result was a billboard that many people actually thought was K-Rock's. Calls came in from listeners laughing at how the station had got around the ruling. The truth was the ad was real! The billboard idea has developed into a campaign and Steve Jones Corporate PD of Newcap says "It was sending a clear message about our product, and it was getting through to the most important group ... non-listeners and fringe listeners. Our regulars loved it and laughed. It was the non-listeners and fringe listeners who immediately became aware of our station, our dial position, and our mission."
In the fall of 2002 K-Rock decided to have some fun. For four weeks, they ran this billboard which encouraged people to call a local phone number if they wished to complain in advance. When people called the number they heard a message from morning co-host Bill Cowen in the voice of Joe Pesci, telling them they were nuts.
"People with nothing better to do with their time called to complain about our previous billboards, things they heard on the air, and the fact that we were mocking them with this ad. The word spread among the audience that the message on the phone was hysterical. Hundreds of listeners called the number, just to hear the message. People would gather around speakerphones at work to hear it. It was amazing!" says Jones.
"The ‘Coming Soon’ billboard was a giant middle-finger to those who were offended by our previous billboards. That's exactly what you'd expect a classic rock station like ours to do... it is all part of our stationality." says Steve Jones.
By the way here is their current billboard, which again is generating lots of awareness for K-Rock in Edmonton. Make your message stand out: All too often I see radio stations throwing a little money at TV or billboards, determined perhaps more by what they managed to keep on the marketing line of the budget, as opposed to what it really will take to do the job. If you get into the traditional forms of advertising you really need the weight to effectively communicate a message. Try to own one medium. There is a comparison between the way advertising works and how a hot air balloon works. It takes a lot of hot air to get the balloon up to one thousand feet, but then only short bursts of heat to keep it there. The challenge today is even if you can get your "balloon" in the air, you cannot control how many other "balloons" are competing for the same space when it comes to TV and newspaper. How often have you seen a break on TV where the same product category appears in the same break? It happens all the time in newspaper as well, which effectively neutralizes the impact of your spot. The radio stations that "seize the moment" and are innovative and creative, seem to be the ones that generate the awareness and "move the needle." How does your station rate in this area? |