Happy Friday, everyone!
We're officially into the last quarter of the year which means . . . only 82 shopping days till Christmas! I know, you really didn't need to hear that. BUT, it does mean it's time to talk about holiday promotions, so here is this week's poll question (and thanks to Jessica Klym of Gillette, WY for the suggestion!):
What Christmas promotions or holiday contests is your station doing this year? When do you start selling Christmas ad schedules?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
We begin selling for our annual 12 Days of Christmas promotion this month (October). Our 12 major sponsors invest in over 200 live and recorded announcements over a 3-month period, a 2-hour live broadcast at their location, and also offer a "Grand Prize" valued at $500 or more. We also offer a minor sponsorship that includes everything mentioned, but instead of a grand prize, they offer a $50 prize to give away at their live broadcast.
We begin taking listener registrations near the end of October by taking 4 on-air caller registrations a day and also take registrations at our live broadcasts. Our listeners can register one time on the air and one time at every live broadcast location- twice if they have our cool WLEN keychain.Each participant who enters at a live broadcast location will also be entered to win a $50 gas card at the end of that broadcast.
Every day for the 12 weekdays prior to Christmas, we draw a name and announce it on the air. That person has 10 minutes and 39 seconds to call us and claim their grand prize. It's a fun promotion that our local community really gets into. I'm looking forward to it!
We've been selling Christmas.
We have a promotion called Christmas Cash. Sponsors sign up for an advertising/promotion package and agree to accept any Christmas Cash as total or partial payment for goods or services. Obviously, some businesses will get more redemptions than others, so we allow all businesses to submit Christmas Cash to us as payment towards their invoice.
Register on line, by answering simple questions about Christmas,Thanksgiving, New Year, etc., and at remotes. Registrants are given 10 minutes 23 seconds to call in to win Christmas Cash when their name is announced on-air.
Gotta love those frequency-specific call in time limits. lol
I started pitching holidays early in Sept. If you wait til Thanksgiving you get all of those "Budget" excuses. November is the time for 2016 annual proposals (In some cases, October)
I do mornings at a Classic Hits station in South Bend, IN.
This December, I'll do 5 'Stockings Full Of Rock' which include some of the hottest CD's/DVD''s and books that came out from our artists.
This year I'm trying to get sales to get a jewelry sponsor on board to include at least a $100 gift certificate that listeners can put towards another "rock" of their choice..
We'll see.
Last year I played snippets of songs using 'rock' in them and they had to identify each artist & song in the montage to win.
May do the same this year.
Any other ideas?
Selling Christmas schedules NOW! We have two Christmas/Holiday Promotions;
And our favorite long-running Promotion
Can you give me an idea of how you put this together? Does the station pay for the trip and make up the cost through the selling of packages? Do you trade for any of the airfare, hotel, etc?? We've tried often to put similar promotions together, but are a small station and can't afford any costs out of pocket. So, as the Promotions person I'm usually tasked with finding someone to trade for advertising which isn't always easy. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Brenda;
We pay for it and make it up through sales. Expensive but popular and businesses know they will get good traffic for registration.
Joel