Happy Friday, everyone!
Here is this week's poll question:
What Christmas promotion(s) is your station doing this year?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
We're doing the Amber Sound Christmas Messages - clients come in and record themselves "Hi, this is Dan from abc company wishing all of our patrons a very merry Christmas and a happy new year"
We charge clients £50 for this and they get a guaranteed 20 plays from now until the end of Christmas.
Sold 17 yesterday!
example attached
Happy Holidays!
In radio, I am always frustrated by our universal lack of forward planning...you know, like when the newspaper puts out it's entire special insert plan for the whole year. And looking at what other stations are doing this year for Xmas doesn't really help me for this year. I think it might be a good idea to go with poll questions that don't talk about what's happening now, but what you plan to do in the future, or what has worked for you in the past. So ideas about Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, Winter School vacation and spring promotions would get us all working sooner on ideas that we can make better. Just Sayin
We are a Christian radio station in a smaller market, but what we do at Christmas is really awesome. Our first promotion started on Black Friday where we had kids come into the station between the ages of 5 and 10 and sing their favorite Christmas Carol. We recorded these and then went out and had businesses to sponsor the World's Smallest Carolers. This was a big success. I also had a client that sponsored an entire day of Christmas music to be played the day after Thanksgiving as we don't switch entirely to Christmas music like alot of stations around us do. Now we are working on Christmas greeting packages where the clients get :30 second ads to wish our listeners a Merry Christmas plus let them kow what specials they have going on for the holiday. So far all of these have really worked out. We also have an angel tree of foster kids in our lobby that a local car dealer sponsored and our listeners came in and our tree is now empty of angels because our listeners are good about taking care of those in need.
We are running our 2nd annual Merry Christmas Cash promotion. Sponsoring businesses get registration boxes. DJ's call the business once a week for 3 weeks leading up to Christmas. They get a short liner during the call and pull a name out of the box. DJ calls that person live on the air and if they answer the phone "Merry Christmas" they win $50 cash. Sponsors and listeners love it!
We do a $1,000 Shopping Spree. Listeners register at participating businesses. This Wednesday we will do mini remotes and draw a winner from each participating business. Each business provides a prize for their winner. We then take all the names and draw one winner. Them and their guest will be driven by Limo to shop at any of the participating businesses to spend their $1,000. Packages include ads and promo's for November and December.
Also very popular is our "True Meaning of Christmas". Churches in this area record one minute segments which air December 11-25.
Hi Bob,
Good point, and one that I'll definitely keep in mind for future poll questions. However, that being said, we did run a poll question on Christmas promotions in October and didn't get many responses, which is why I thought I'd run it again now, when it's on everyone's mind. The discussion will then be on file in the Friday Poll archives, so it will come up in searches when members search for Christmas ideas earlier in the year in 2012.
I don't think we've had any discussions on the holidays you've mentioned, but we have had several on spring promotions, and I compiled a list of them here: http://www.radiosalescafe.com/forum/topics/spring-time-categories.
Thank you again for your post -- I do appreciate the input!
Rebecca
We are doing Gas, Groceries and Gifts. These are things everyone can use and is a $3,000 giveaway per category with one prize sponsor per category. Secondary sponsorships are also available.
Listeners register on-line, on-air or at participating businesses. When their name is called they have 10 minutes and 1 second to call-in to win $50 in every category. No winner and the prize amount doubles for the next time.
A fun little program in our neck of the woods is Santa Cash. We sell packages to participating merchants including a two hour on-location broadcast. At these broadcasts and on air we give away Santa Cash....$10 monopoly type money that can be redeemed at participating merchants. The promotion starts with ...listen for Santa Cash give-aways....we've given away ????dollars in Santa Cash....redeem by Jan 14, 2012. Retailers treat this dollar bills as cash then in January we gather in the redeemed Santa Cash and pay the merchants dollar for dollar. It's like they buy the package, provide prizing that we then pay for. Listeners come to the on-location, ask for Santa Cash and usually spend it right there.
Hola Amigos!
This is a promotion we've doing here at Radio Latina for the past 3 years. It has a bank of spots and live mentions, along with our staff in Santa Clauss and Elves suit. So far I've sold 13X packages great for car dealers, pawn shops and everybody who wants a 90 minute station apperance with holiday music, in real realy events we bring a pot of coffee and donuts ...My traffic director has been very supportive with the DJ and live mentions scheduled correctly, remember to fill Santa's sack with Gift cards, toys and trade for merchansdise.
Give it a try it will bring extra revenue...HAVE your BOSS pay you as NTR...is a higher commission!
Good luck and Merry Christmas to everyone!
Billy Meza
XLTN Radio Latina 104.5 FM
San Diego /Tijuana
I missed that, my bad
I'm not from a radio station in the normal sense, but we offer new clients the opportunity to advertise over our network for a holiday discount. It's only the second year we have done this, and we had good results last year, and are having success again. We are looking at some new ideas next year to go along with our current promotion.
Chris
At Hope FM, in Nairobi Kenya one of the most exciting Christmas promos we are running is dubbed "14 days in the garden of Eden" for a company called Eden Tea. The presenter simply gives proverbial clues to a location in the city where you can get Eden tea; a supermarket and listeners try their luck. The first right answer wins an Eden tea gift hamper!
