Back-to-school and Radio

Seriously good article in today’s Wall Street Journal – Stores Anxiously Watch Back-to-School Sales.   Click thru and read the article.  A few key perspectives:

• Inventories cut back with lower back-to-school sales expectations
• Retailers would rather chase more stock than discount if sales are weak
• Quick read to come from Florida and South Carolina with earlier back-to-school start dates
• If Back-to-school is weak then merchants will cut holiday inventory  … 2009 game over

Merchants are spreading out the “goods” to make shelves look full.  The mind set is run out rather than mark down.   No doubt, consumers will notice the lack of selection.  An unintended consequence might be even lower sales.

What’s this mean for local radio support?  At best, spot buy reductions with lower inventory and lower sales expectations.   Doing the same thing gets less.  It is time to reach deeper to stay even or think about recovering from this year’s first 6-months.

Couple of ideas:

• Bring back radio’s strong suit … contests.  Radio engages listeners like no other medium.  Turn on that special reach.   You can make the phones ring.  Now, make the register’s ring.
• Make the new contests about today, this weekend, and 72-hours.  The world isn’t waiting for 3-week events.  That’s so 90’s.  Do a blow out weekend.   Feature a special value … extraordinary event for 72-hours.  Concentrate the spot buy and flush out that sparse inventory.  Then it will be time to replenish the goods and the next spot buy.  Holiday outlook will be much brigher.
• Selling is now a team sport.  Two spots a day isn’t going to make a difference.  You need to program a support package.  Sell the concentrated package of spots on all day-parts, it will take on air mentions, web site banners, and page text for search engines.   Now, that contest … 72-hours and blow them away.
• Make the contests about back-to-school.  You might even think about individual winners from different schools to engage the entire audience.

Digital Radio Revenue

Looking for more digital traffic, time-spent-online, and page views?   Look to your audience.  Tracking of the top-100 radio stations indicates less than 8% of their broadcast audience visits the station’s website while 50-70% of the audience is online.  That’s 1 of every 10 listeners … listeners that go online every day.  Nobody talks about the station website numbers but everybody knows.  It’s no secret.  Ask the sales team for more digital revenue and they ask for “better numbers to sell”. 

Dynamic content will bring your radio website traffic, the sales attention, and increase your digital revenue.

How do you get dynamic content?  Your audience and CELLit Media

CELLit Media provides the video and picture tools to engage your audience.   Videos and pictures are easily posted to pages with your station’s logo, colors, and display text.  You create your own channels; select how media is displayed; and fully moderate videos, pictures, comments, and tags.  CELLit provides these tools for shared advertising space.  No cash expense.  No operating expense.  Just opportunity!

About CELLit Media and dynamic content:

• You can add dynamic banners to your main website that update to the most recent postings, the most popular or the highest rated items of the moment 
• You can add a video player to your pages and display the videos of your choice for immediate viewing
• You can manage media based contests with start/stop times, special instructions, graphics, and system generated reports to judge the winners.

How do you get started?  First, recruit a digitally inclined on-air talent to post “their video and picture stuff”.   We promise the on-air talent doesn’t need much encouragement to get started.  DJ’s using CELLit Media dynamic widgets and video players will immediately boost your web traffic.  Second, start an audience contest.  Something very simple … best Dad for Father’s day, summer swimsuits, any pet contest, any baby picture contest, my office cubical … whatever.  You will increase your traffic again.  You will be a real hero.

For more visit www.CELLit.com.

New Year Resolution Week: January 4-10

Have a hard time keeping a New Year Resolution?  How about putting it on video for the world to see to help you stay on track. Ask your listeners to send in video of them stating their New Year Resolution.  Listeners go to the site to vote for the best video each day to select the weekly winner.  A panel of celebrity judges will select the winner of the best New Year Resolution from the daily winners.  The winner’s resolution will help shape the prize they win.

New Year Resolution Video Theme:  Resolution Week

Invite listeners to send in a video of their New Year Resolution. Listeners vote for their favorites to select each day’s winner.  A panel of judges selects a winner during the station’s special event or remote.

Sponsors: Health Club, Spa, Health Food Store, and Weight Loss Center

Fun At Work Day: January 30th

Capture how you have Fun At Work on video for the world to see.  Ask your listeners to send in a video of how they have fun at work either with or without their peers and win prizes.  The Boss will never know or maybe they will join in to win really cool stuff. Come on – be yourself show us that work and fun can go together. Listeners vote for their favorite video.

Fun At Work Video Theme:  Fun At Work Day

Invite listeners to send in a video of what they do for fun at work.  Listeners vote for their favorites who win prizes from local retailers.

Sponsors: Coffee House, Office Supply Store, Deli, or Electronics Store

Belly Laugh Day: January 24th

Have you heard the one about…?  Probably but we want to hear it from you.  Tell a joke on video and sent it to us.  We are ready for a good laugh; just remember to keep it short and clean.  Listeners select the funniest joke to determine the winner.  Use your on-air talent to inspire those want-a-be comedians to send in videos.

Joke Contest Theme:  Tell Us A Joke

Invite participants to video their funniest joke to celebrate Belly Laugh Day.  Listeners vote for their favorite. Winners receive tickets and VIP treatment at the local Comedy Club.

Sponsors: Comedy Clubs, Night Clubs

National Clean Off Your Desk Day: January 12th

Every office has at least one desk that stands out from the all the rest good or bad.  We want to find those special desks and share them with the world to celebrate National Clean Off Your Desk Day. Ask your listeners to send in their videos/pictures of that cluttered desk in their office to win prizes for themselves and their peers.

The four-week contest starting on January 12^th has a winner every week with a grand champion selected from the weekly submissions.  Listeners go to the site to vote for the best/worst desk each week to select the weekly winner.  A panel of celebrity judges will visit each office location to select the winner of the grand champion worst office desk title from the weekly winners.

Messiest Desk Video Theme:  National Clean Off Your Desk Day

Invite listeners to send in a video of their office’s messiest desk.  Listeners vote for the best/worst to select the prize-winning office desk.

Sponsors: Office Supply Retailer, Office Furniture Company

I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore Day

Are you fed up with something in your life? Well it is time to rant and rave about it to win prizes. January 7^th is I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore Day. Ask your listeners to send in videos of their best rant on the topic of that of their choice.  Listeners go the website to vote for the one they think deserves winning a golf resort/spa stay.

Rant & Rave Video Theme:  I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore Day

Invite listeners to send in a rant video of what is ever bothering them to get it off their chest.  Listeners vote for the most deserving to select the prize-winning trip.

Sponsors: Las Vegas Casino, Spa/Golf Resort or Cruise Line

Holiday Lights Promotion

Invite listeners to send in a video of their outside Christmas lights.  Listeners vote for the best decorated home to select the winner.  Listeners are encouraged to take the online tour to get into the Holiday spirit.  Winner receives a shopping spree at the local mall or home improvement center from your local sponsor.

Your website traffic doubles, your digital advertiser’s visibiltiy doubles, and your heads-above the competition.

Calendar Contests

Got a station calendar? Want to run a contest for the best monthly item?  Use CELLit Media tools to engage your audience and select the calendar pictures.

• Fireman’s Calendar – Post pictures of the fireman and let your audience vote on the month. Post more pictures and let them help you select the hottest fireman for each month. They get a local hardware store to sponsor the calendar with smoke alarms, burglar alarms, and other home improvement items. Post a video of the sponsor on the Welcome Page so every visitor sees the sponsor message one-time each day.
• EMT – Same as the Fireman’s Calendar but highlight the local EMT crew. Great for a healthcare sponsor program, local charity drive, or medical care group. Think of lawyers as sponsors … it beats chasing accidents.
• Mascots – Choose a station mascot or favorite listener promotion crew. Feature your on air announcers is different situations and let your audience choose the monthly winners. Each month calls out the station’s favorite promotion event. Let the audience pick the favorite picture and be enthusiastic about the next event.
• Cheerleaders – Always a great calendar item. Sponsor a local team? Do a cheerleader calendar.
• Local Sports Teams – Add team photos to the calendar and engage your audience to pick out their favorite subjects.

Video Contests

Video and picture contests are easy with CELLit.  Engage your best listeners, viewers, and readers.  They can participate with their PC, by email, or cell phone.  We have ADMIN tools to help you manage the audience’s participation.

1. The audience can post any video or picture up to 50 MB from their PC
2. Email video or pictures as attachments to YourStation@cellit.us.  The subject line becomes the title.  Or, forward emails from a contest email account Contest@mystation.com
3. Send a picture or video from a cell phone by picture email.  No extra charges.
4. We capture the sender’s email, cell phone number, and other contact information so you can notify the winners.
5. You can create a special CHANNEL for your contest.
6. Use the #-views, rating, and comments to help select winners.
7. You can select finalist.  Then reset the views, ratings, tags, comments to conduct a “Finalist” leg of the contest.

Let your next contest go viral as participants tell their friends to visit, watch, and vote.  Your contest audience can email-a-friend, share a link on their FaceBook or MySpace pages, or embed the contest video on their own web pages (with your logo-watermark inside the video).

Now, let the videos and pictures work for you all-year long.  Search engines love multi-media content and you will enjoy new search engine directed traffic for the next year.

Show off your contests to sponsors.  Get them to sponsor the next event.