Depending on your radio station’s spot load, the number of local shows… There is a limit to how many promos your station can run. My belief is that promoting the station is essential and key to the station’s success.
How many promos should you be running? What content mix should be in those promos? How often should the promos be refreshed?
Businesses are paying big money to advertise on your station. Advertising on your station is key to success. There is an old-school term called “dirtying the cume,” which essentially means figuring out ways to tempt people to listen to all shows on your station.
If you look at Nielsen data, a substantial portion of your audience is not listening to your complete lineup. There are good reasons for this. A listener may not like one of the shows on the station. The listener may be roped into work, family or leisure obligations. There also may be a show on your station that has a bad reputation with a substantial part of your audience. Sometimes, there is a show that has run its course. But how do we address these issues?
Make News Your Competitive Advantage
What is your station’s competitive advantage? For news/talk stations, it is breaking news. How many news promos do you have running, and how often are they updated? I have limited time, so I use a service for news promos and update those promos daily or weekly, depending on the promo delivered. The service that I use provides a daily news promo that arrives around 10 o’clock every morning. I try to make sure that I am available to produce that promo when it arrives each day. Promos like this are key to demonstrating that my stations are up to the minute. I run that promo until the morning show the following day.
On Friday, I cut off that promo at midnight. I have five other news promos in the rotation that are all updated every 7 to 10 days. The sheer tonnage of promos is key in creating the impression that the station is bigger than it is.
Obviously, pulling promos that are out of date is essential. The daily news promo that I schedule my day around sometimes becomes obsolete.
I recently had a daily news promo become obsolete just a few hours after I produced it. I quickly changed the permissions to pull that promo from rotation ASAP.
Show Promos and Event Promos
My weekday lineup, 6a – 7p, has three promos running that are updated every three weeks. Sometimes there are just not enough hours in a day, and one promo may run an extra week or two. I always make sure to pull a promo from rotation ASAP if the content is out of date.
So, I have three separate promos running to promote each primetime show in the promo rotation. I daypart these promos. Obviously, they don’t run during the show they are promoting. I also daypart them out of the hour after the show, except on Wednesday. I know that seems odd. But here is why: I am in diary markets, and the diary keepers need to drop the diary in the mail on Thursday morning.
If one more mention can help, I don’t want to leave anything to chance. I have one promo in rotation for my 9p weekday show and one for my overnight show. Weekend show promos start running on Wednesday for Saturday shows and on Thursday for Sunday shows. Promoting a Saturday show on Sunday or Monday is a waste of precious promo time.
We all have station events to promote from time to time. Depending on their importance, I have those promos rotating two or three times in the promo list.
Station Personality Promos
I have one to three of these promos always running. I write and produce them. Here is a link to three promos that I have added to the mix this year.
I write these promos to add a surprise for listeners. As I have previously shared, every station has a personality. It is incumbent that the program director identify that feeling. I can assure you that my writing has been different for each station that I have managed. To be fair, my goofy personality comes out in these writings. These promos also must be written in a way that highlights the strengths of the station’s imaging voice.
I am working with Jim Cutler on my stations, and I know how to write for him. I have worked with other amazing people, and writing for them is different. It is not better or worse, but I find it important to mirror the personality that an imaging voice provides. When I write, I come up with a premise and imagine Jim reading the promo as I type it out.
I am not someone who continually rewrites a promo. I bang it out and perhaps make an edit. Which usually avoids repeating a word or phrase that is unnecessary. I then read it out loud as Jim would naturally read it while timing the copy. If it all times out properly, I send it off to get voiced. I sometimes will wait for the copy to be returned to pick out the music bed. I will also hunt for the right bed after I email the copy off. It depends.
How Many Promos Per Hour?
I also have a promo or two in the rotation highlighting the station app, website and so on.
How many promos per hour? This is a push-me, pull-you conundrum. I personally like two to three per hour.
Obviously, your station’s spot load and corporate initiatives may dictate promo schedules. Including promos that repeat in rotation, I have approximately 50 promos in that rotator. How long do I allow my station personality promos to run? Usually six to eight weeks, and then they are pulled. I sometimes will bring a personality promo back from the dead if I think it still works.
Creating memorable moments is our jam. That is what makes your radio station work. Being entertaining mandates providing surprises for your listeners. Being predictable in today’s fractured media environment is malpractice.
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