Radio Sales Café

Followed advice received and contacted a local radio station. Won't mention their name. They wanted thousands per week.  Seemed a little pricey for me.  I'm guessing it was a package of a lot of commercial spots daily.

Is there a list in radio sales of stations and who to contact out there?  Do they ever publish their rates or is it one of those things that's kept internal?

Thanks!

Tom

Thank you so much!

I have used radio-locator.com as well. Our stations are a little weird.... We DO post our rates.... I think it makes sense. Imagine if the grocery store didn't have prices on the shelf... That would make buying more difficult! We set a rate and post it. SIMPLE! John Small 

This post was edited by RSC Administrator at February 24, 2024 3:23 PM PST

John,

Thank you. I understand why stations don't necessarily post their rates, giving them some wiggle room to negotiate, but your approach is much appreciated. Amazing difference between what your rates are and what I was quoted; different markets, but still.  I will keep you in mind.  Thank you so much.

Tom

 

Standard Rate and Data / SRDS is the industry standard used by agencies and advertisers. Lists alphabetically by state and then by market call letters, ownership/parent company, format, rep firm if any, contact and website info and programming and sales management by name. No rate info as this is updated annually.

As far as rates, Tom, you are now in the political window - for Michigan this is June 21 - Aug 5 and Sept 5 - Nov 4. Because stations are required to provide Lowest Unit Rate to candidates, stations will demonstrate less flexibility with rates in these windows. Since almost all candidates run :60 ' s to air 6a-7p ask for :30 or :15 rates to air in a wider day part.

We do not post rates. We have 3 stations, a variety of advertising options involving 1, 2 and 3 stations, nonbroadcast, digital and social media and we design proposals to meet the objectives of the client. So a fixed rate card is not practicable for the way we sell.

Also, Tom. The station you called is pricey as compared with what? Formats target specific listenerships and rates are a function of that and total audience. For the audience the station provides to you, they may not be as pricey as you think. Radio is arguably the most cost effective medium available to you

I did not mean to offend anyone about the pricing. I am new to this world.  "Pricey" for me is thousands per week, as we are a Startup, bootstrapping our new company.  We have to be very judicious in how we spend our money and targeting our markets. It may actually be that "pricey" is cheap.  I need a larger sample of price per audience reach before I can judge.

Political windows are probably going to be great for us as politicians are always wanting to raise money and we can help them as much as any other business needing to generate money.

I understand about not posting rates. It sounds like you do a variety of advertising venues within your station. Almost sounds like you are a PR firm as they seem to handle that as well. 

Thank you for your comments. They are much appreciated. I'll get there.

We do not post our rates. Mainly because we try to customize marketing packages for each individual client.

Thanks Jessica, I thought it was something like that.  Everyone does things a little differently so even rates would be difficult to compare.  Thanks, Tom.

John... I LOVE your 2-page advertising flyer! Can we connect by email or on Facebook? Would love some input from you on some of my content. -Alex

In Tom's defense, sometimes the bigger stations with HUGE audience sizes are indeed pricey and inefficient. I used to sell for the state's most listened to FM station. Over 500,000 weekly listeners. $150 for a thirty second ad. 30 ads a week: $4,500. The station was designed to be effective for regional and national clients who a.) need massive reach and b.) have the big budgets to make it happen. $4,500 is more than most local businesses are able to pay their employees each month. Spending that much on advertising, even week on/week off, isn't realistic. There are exceptions: automotive, medical, lawyers... industries where the value of one customer is insanely high and there's already a large stream of revenue coming in.

If you're not taking advantage of online streaming ads... you should be! It's a great tool for clients who can't afford to be on the air consistently but could benefit from reaching your most passionate/responsive listeners. I've been able to get clients started by doing a weekend on-air schedule + online streaming ads. It's a smaller audience online, but a very valuable one! They listen for long periods of time. And streaming rates tend to be pretty affordable (even when I was at the state's biggest FM station... we sold the stream for $5-$10 a pop). Ask around about the stream.

  

As far as publishing rates goes... I find that only deprives you of the opportunity to cultivate a partnership because it attracts price shoppers who will make their decision before you can show them how you can meet their needs. Not to mention ad rates are not helpful to the average business owner. Same with packaged schedules. It's just a number. No two business's needs are the same. Which is why it's nice to have packages available, but I don't like putting them in front of a client until I learn about their business and their needs. If the package can get the job done, fine. A proposal only needs to have the SOS... situation, objective, strategy. And then how much it's going to cost (per week/per month) to get the job done!

Hi!  Thanks for the info. Very comprehensive response. The streaming ads are of interest to me. I didn't even know what they were called, though I listen to streamed radio. Probably a dumb question, but how do they coordinate those with the spot? Is it just a scheduled thing?

On our site we offer the advertiser the ability to put up whatever they want in their description section and image section.  Are the streaming ads via Google Adwords or is it something different?  

We would love to be able to automate that process by allowing them to put code on their profile page. We could of course put Google code in there, but we only want the owner of the words ads to appear, not their competition. Currently, they can simply upload their ad, but automating it would be better and easier for the company.

We are cultivating partnerships now with discounted premium words for companies who may be second tier in their industry. Not everyone can get 1800-MyProduct spelled out in a word. Finding phone numbers that spell your product or company name are next to impossible to find. That's where we can be a big plus for business owners because it's what we do only better.

Starting out we are budget limited, but people are already finding us and we only opened on Tuesday.

Thanks a lot for the information. The cost I was quoted was even higher than the cost you posted. We'll get there I'm sure, but not just yet.

 

FYI, I used Dave at Radio-mall.com to do an emailing campaign.  He is great. Very helpful. I highly recommend his site and his company. (no he did not pay me to say that).

How do you make sure your client lists are being properly managed?

Rick,

Not sure what you mean.

Tom

I am very concerned that all of our potential clients are serviced properly.  We use InfluenceFM.com to track our potential business.

Ah! Now I see what you mean.  Looks interesting.  I can see why it would be useful.  Thank you.

Tom