I'm doing small market sales at a station that is the only local station for a county of 40,000. We have an incredibly loyal audience with listening patterns more like the late 1970s and early 1980s. We are very heavily involved in the community. It's so sweet, the station is heard in many of the businesses I call on. In fact, I was taking a new prospect through our media kit and when I said "Let me tell you a little about our station", she stopped me saying she grew up listening to the station and currently resides in the home where the morning jock grew up.
Like any small market station, local sports is a huge deal and big moneymaker. Local events, festivals and such churn extra bucks with sponsorships including mentions during a live remote. We're still selling Graduation greetings.
I've seen about 40% of my billing go away. The big bulk of that was high school sports and sponsorships for things like Germanfest. As for regular month after month advertisers, I have only lost $300. I feel pretty lucky. I don't see how I can make up those dollars elsewhere at this point but I have expanded my prospecting to less conventional advertisers. In all fairness, regular advertisers are about 50% with school and event advertising being the other half.
Competition is hurting too. The daily paper sold a client of mine a half page ad on Sundays for $100, or about 20% of rate card. Some are getting creative. At a weekly in a town where I have some clients, the paper managed to sell most of a page with ads. It's a "We're Open" page running for a 13 week flight with clients paying $39 a week (13th week free). Ads are hours and contact info detailing how the business connects to customers. It was a financial windfall for them after losing about 70% of their column inches thanks to cancelled events and school activities businesses want to be attached to.
One business I have on my list uses billboards. I suggested he contact the billboard company to furlough the monthly charge while he is shut down. He took my advice and called his rep. They will extend his contract but not bill him the usual monthly fee until he's back up and operating. Meanwhile it gives me a shot at getting a few more dollars since he's not paying that bill at the moment. MY share is chump change compared to those billboards.
The sales climate right now is not good. I pride myself on close relationships with my clients. I want them to know I work for their best interests. I have many clients that are just plain scared. Many have let staff go and have seen drastic cuts to their income. One restaurant owner said once he got a great staff that got along and was perfectly trained, he had to go take out only (not what they're known for). Sales volume dropped to the point it is the owner and 1 fulltime and a parttime person. He had about 20 employees a few weeks back. It's a story that's repeating over and over.
I would say we are not hurting as much as other stations. In an effort to help restaurants I pitched half gift certificates and half cash. We'd donate certificates to a charity (maybe save some to hand out as thank yous to clients). Naturally we'd want our call letters rubber stamped on every gift certificate because when it comes back we want some tangible results. My boss said no at this point.
For graduation I thought we might have graduation nights for the county schools by allowing all the speeches to be recorded and mixed with a roll call of the names of students graduating from each high school. We could podcast the graduation to allow families to download the whole ceremony. The issue for us: small staff and 10 high schools in our primary listening area. Maybe somebody can use the idea in a place where there's one or two schools. Sure, we could likely sell some more graduation packages if we did but the work involved would add to an already full plate of other duties for everyone.
I have noticed 'burn-out' on commercials talking about Covid 19. Those spots that say things like 'in these unprecedented times' and such are begin rewritten to simply be factual. No more of this 'we're all in this together' stuff. The words have lost their impact from overuse. I'm finding saying how you're doing business and asking for that business is better received at the moment. Avoiding lines like 'because of Covid 19' is seen as we are making progress toward returning to normal even if it's a new normal.
I am here in Texas. May 1 restaurants and non-essential businesses can reopen. Most restaurants have not opened their dining rooms. The only real bar in town is shuttered. Quite a few stores are not open. My pharmacy is still drive-thru or curbside. My bank is drive-thru only. You'd think they'd be clamoring to open but they are taking a wait and see. As I said, folks are just scared.
I know some stations are really taking it on the chin. I know one owner that never really was laughing all the way to the bank, billing about $14-$15,000 a month on average. He is at about $4-$5,000 a month at the moment. Tourism is important in his area, so maybe that's why he has seen such a drop.
Many of my clients have told me they have 'let people go', not because they're fired but so they could collect unemployment. For the business owners, they want the employee back but cash reserves just cannot allow them to get a paycheck for being at home right now and as the state law works you can only get unemployment if you're out of a job. What might appear to be owners that don't care really is not the case among those I'm talking to, but rather something they had to do so their employees could get a check from the state when they couldn't pay them.
