How to choose a radio station

We anticipate that our tourism promotion project will employ one or two radio stations to promote a drawing to give away 50 vacations as a marketing tool. Local merchants such as grocery stores, bars and pubs, and restaurants will have entry forms and boxes to receive them. The radio stations will tell their listeners about the giveaway and where to enter.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to choose radio stations, questions to ask, how to obtain rating info such as number of listeners and demographics, etc. New ideas are very much appreciated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlabston

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to choose radio stations...

I would take into account your target audience's preferred format (News/Talk, Hit Radio, Oldies, etc.), on air personalities, coverage area, and of course price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlabston

We anticipate that our tourism promotion project will employ one or two radio stations to promote a drawing to give away 50 vacations as a marketing tool. Local merchants such as grocery stores, bars and pubs, and restaurants will have entry forms and boxes to receive them. The radio stations will tell their listeners about the giveaway and where to enter.

How far away do you want to promote? Are you looking to promote locally, or regionally? How far away are your entry boxes going to be placed? What demographic sector of the population are you looking to visit?

Once you figure that out, then hold preliminary interviews with a number of stations to see how their demographics best match what you are looking for. Narrow it down to 4 or 5 stations, and then hold in-depth interviews to figure out which station(s) are willing to work with you to provide the best service for the cost.

You have the information on what you need to accomplish. The radio stations have the means to help accomplish that need. (some better than others). Until they understand what you need, they can't propose proper solutions. Until you understand how their proposed solutions fit your needs, neither one can effectively help the other.

Pam

Quote:

Originally Posted by SalesGuy

I would take into account your target audience's preferred format (News/Talk, Hit Radio, Oldies, etc.), on air personalities, coverage area, and of course price.

Thanks for these suggestions, SalesGuy. As far as a target audience, I am hoping to keep the target market as broad as possible and have had recommendations to do so in earlier posts. Therefore, the format should probably be as varied as possible.

The interest in the project that the personalities take is probably more important than the personalities themselves. Having said this, the personalities, to some extent will determine the market share.

Price,of course, will ultimately be a factor, but I expect it to be the last consideration, not the first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadySmith

How far away do you want to promote? Are you looking to promote locally, or regionally? How far away are your entry boxes going to be placed? What demographic sector of the population are you looking to visit?

Once you figure that out, then hold preliminary interviews with a number of stations to see how their demographics best match what you are looking for. Narrow it down to 4 or 5 stations, and then hold in-depth interviews to figure out which station(s) are willing to work with you to provide the best service for the cost.

Pam

As far as distance, I have a list of radio stations that serve the metropolitan area that we are interested in. Demographics is interesting to an extent because I expect the primary interest in the area to be winter sports. This suggests a demographic younger than (I'm probably going to get in trouble here) 60 years old.Beyond that, I have been advised to NOT limit my market to a narrow demographic.

SalesGuy's point about personalities was interesting from the perspective of the interest they might personally have in the project. That is the kind of insightful thinking that i am looking for that is sometimes (and in my case) overlooked.

As far as narrowing it down to 4 or 5 stations, I can do that somewhat from looking at the websites. I have eliminated several and have compiled a list of 5 or 6 interesting stations so far. I still have a few to research before going throught the process of elimination.

Thanks for some very useful new perspectives.

How to choose a radio station

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