Personal messages on the radio

    • 68 posts
    July 2, 2010 3:09 AM PDT
    Has anyone had any success in putting liners on the radio like a Birthday, anniversary or lost pet announcements.  What do you think.  Would it help or hurt your programming?  Would it drive listeniership or kill it?
    • 2 posts
    July 2, 2010 8:21 AM PDT
    Joel,

    We also air these announcements only no charge it has always been free. What do you charge the sponsors and do they sign up for a yearly?

    Nancy
    • 1373 posts
    July 2, 2010 10:12 AM PDT
    I posted this on the RSC Facebook page, and received these responses from two of our fans: From Dawson McKay: "No one cares unless there's a story. 'Happy Birthday, Douglas' is white noise. 'Happy Birthday to Douglas, who's celebrating his first birthday with his baby daughter after coming back from Iraq' at least tells a little bit of a story. And always better if done by a caller." From Frank Baum: "Positive for the small coverage area LPfm, AM, the most general interest items first ... lost pets, group's yard sales, school car washes, fund raisers ... becomes less the positive the more individualized it becomes even in smallest markets. "serve the public" a litmus test. As sponsored time with brand solid in audience minds, customers data requested by the customer, a biz plus within a commercial.. a mini-episode reminding of the "biz name, product, quality, and today's possible birthday mention _name_ " a positive in "testimonial" value and personalized relating to their customer base. Medium mkt-->large, no. Would hurt it."
    • 58 posts
    July 2, 2010 12:47 PM PDT
    Depends on market size.Big city, not so much.A client, class C in a total rural area, with no metros, took b'day, anniversary calls every day and said the peoples name on the air during the morning show.Each day a birthday or anniversary person was chosen to recieve a free dinner for two.The eatery had to buy a sked just to give the meal away.There was a waiting list to be a sponsor, sponsors could only do the give away for one month each year, but had to buy a 3 month sked.Most days there were 25 or more names.Remember the old saying,There is nothing sweeter to a person than the sound of their own name.It's true!! This station was one of the best stations, both from a audience and revenue standpoint that I've worked with.Big city adman were amazed at the numbers, and cavalier style of of the staff.The clincher is that even a very small ad budget produce results.
    • 993 posts
    July 2, 2010 2:55 PM PDT
    I love the idea of using liners this way, Rick!

    I used to sell a birthday sponsorship - client paid for airtime and provided a birthday cake once a day. If more than one person was having a birthday, we'd draw a name for the cake. Of course, depending on the client and station relationship, more could be done with this. Could easily be adapted by a coffee/espresso stand, donut shop, ice cream parlor, or similar sponsor.

    Joel Swanson's point about LOCAL is well-taken. Whether you're making a direct buck or not (and if it turns out to be popular, there's no reason not to offer a sponsorship), it's a way of personalizing the station-listener relationship.

    A competitor back in Winona, MN 30-some years ago used to do a variant of a birthday greeting. Don't recall whether a birthday even entered into it, but it was a "Be Nice to _____________ Day." Several times a day, the station DJ's would say something like, "Today we're being nice to ____________. If you see ______________ today, be nice to him/her." Created a lot of buzz in our small market and made people feel good, especially the individual so named (along with friends, family, co-workers, etc.) Could it be monetized? Sure. One could easily sell an adjacency, though I'd be inclined to leave out the formal "sponsored by" designation.
    • 68 posts
    July 7, 2010 2:32 PM PDT
    Here is what we are working on. We have started a web site www.Twounce.com (Rhymes with Bounce) where our listeners can put a 7-10 second twounce on the air automatically. It is free right now but will have a shopping cart in a month or so where we can charge for the twounces with Pay Pal on our Twounce.com shopping cart. They can record their own or our announcers will record it for them. Imagine announcements for Birthdays, anniversaries, Graduations, Just for the heck of it, proposals and of course, political Twounces. Imagine this: "Mr Mayor, I have written to you about the dangerous intersection at Acoma St and Playa Dr. Now I am Twouncing you to do what you can to fix the situation. This is Don Williams". Our shopping cart will charge $10 per Twounce in packages of 6. It will eMail/text you with the times they will play and allow you to post the schedule to facebook (along with the audio) and forward the email to your friends letting them know when to tune into the station. Great cume builder. Money from right under our noses! MFRUON. Here is the temporary landing page for Twouncing. www.Twounce.com Tell me what you think. We had 8 (free) Twounces the first day we ran the ad. With 2 Twounces per hour 18 hours per day times 5 stations is $500,000 annually in found money. ...and talk about local.
    • 9 posts
    July 9, 2010 9:45 AM PDT
    Our listenership is very rural and we annouce lost pets, ect. We also have day and half day sponsorships, if the day is being sponsored to celebrate someone's birthday we play Happy Birthday for them and personally give them happy birthday wishes, by sharing thoughts from the person sponsoring the day. There are times the person sponsoring the day will personally voice the spot, which is neat as well. People love it, makes our station just a little more personal.
    • 455 posts
    July 9, 2010 2:03 PM PDT
    We do birthdays, anniversaries and lost pets both on-air and the web. People are passionate about pets. We've made money here, provided a community service and significantly increased pet adoptions over the last year.