I am not familiar with your station and I don't know what you guys are already doign or not doing, but I went ahead and typed up a few of my ideas. I've worked a little in commercial radio and in non-profit. Most of these ideas are from when I was promotions director/public relations person for my 250 watt FM directional signal pointing away from Chicago college station : ) We always found ways to come out on top.
1. You have to have a well defined intrinsic purpose to your station. Underwriters need to purchase underwriting first and foremost because they believe in what you’re doing and secondly because they would enjoy some exposure. If it’s the other way around, you will start having to compete with commercial radio, print media, and any other form of advertising, etc… As a result, you need to have a clearly defined mission statement and regularly remind your underwriters and listeners about it. I hate to admit it, but Religious programming does a very good job with this. There mission is to “win souls” or “minister to whomever” KEXP also does a good job. There mission is something all the lines of expanding the music available on the internet etc… etc…
2. You have to view your underwriters more so as friends that are helping you out as opposed to advertisers. I would recommend getting your underwriters into the station and showing them around. Letting them voice their own underwriting usually is a positive experience for them. It also has a natural production that doesn’t sound all that bad, and it’s cheap/quick. They tend to enjoy hearing themselves on the radio. You could also offer to let their kids/grandkids voice it. They tend to like that as well. Basically, get them sold on the “magic of radio” and make them feel like they can come by at anytime. Try to work them in as guests on your morning show or peak listening times at least once.
3. It’s more important that you retain your underwriters year after year as opposed to having constant turn over. It was way more cost effective to keep underwriters as opposed to use $$$/energy to find new ones.(that’s actually true in commercial as well) One idea to help this is to find a catering service to sell underwriting too. Except instead of “selling” underwriting have them pay for it by catering a fundraising effort twice a year. Use the events to invite all potential and current underwriters/staff too. At this event, remind them of your mission(point 1), talk about financial goals, programming, maybe offer some awards, be creative. Again you have to entertain your underwriters and get them sold on your “mission” because again you won’t have them sold on your “advertising power”.
4. Have a good website that offers an ezine sign-up. Ezines aren’t very hard to setup and it’s great way to get the word out quickly/cheaply about what’s going on at your station. Have one for listeners and one for underwriters. If you buy a new piece of equipment make sure to send an ezine out thanking all of your underwriters.
5. his is pretty freck’n dirty I know….but during Christmas season go all Christmas, up your sponsorship rate,s and sell it off to all your current underwriters. It’s a great chance to sell a short (2 months of underwriting) that may get some new underwriters sold on “your mission”.
6. Tap into non-profit promotional events that are already taking place. This will cost you nothing and you will get great exposure. The people putting on the event also will love it because they get exposure through you station. For example, if there is a walk for breast cancer, go to the walk and setup a table and play your station. Just make sure you call a head and work with the event coordinator.
7. Sell underwriting to a graphics design/print shop, but like the catering deal offer them underwriting in exchange for pens/t-shirts/logos etc… You can pass this stuff out when you go on-location and give it to your underwriters as gifts. They could probably even print a banner for you, especially if you let them also put their logo on it.
8. stay away from the cheap cheap cheap appeal and focus on the "intrinsic, you're doing this for the good of the community aspect"
> Hello, folks. Your genial AM host of that flamethrower we
> now call RadioKYA (Fall City 104.5, Seattle 94.5, Ocean
> Shores 89.5), uptempo hits and oddities of the 50s and 60s.
> And as secondary bottlewasher of the joint, I am also
> charged with generating some (not a ton, just SOMETHING) $$$
> to keep the flame lit. This would be what they call
> underwriting. Which if you haven't noticed Channel 9
> lately, sounds an awful lot like advertising.
>
> Here's where the collective talents and experiences on this
> board come in. What would YOU do if you were tasked with
> generating $$ for an urban LPFM? And be realistic...know
> that the moneyraising has to be done as effortlessly as
> possible, as everybody involved with the station has full
> time+ day jobs as well.
>
> On the plus side:
> Signal reaches over 900,000 souls- if they knew we existed
> Unique format, not like any other on the dial
> Spots are Cheap Cheap Cheap
> Never more than one spot in a "stop"
>
> Negatives:
> No promotion budget. Hell, no budget, period.
> Thin signal, to say the least.
> Station will not appeal to kids.
> Station will not appeal to ad agencies.
> Station will not appeal to rating companies, who do not seem
> to know where to put us. (Funny aside...a listener recently
> emailed me, said a ratings company called his house, and
> when he responded SuperCFL, RadioKYA, and the calls, they
> still had no space to put that in, even though we registered
> with Arbitron...hmmm...)
>
> Anyway, any suggestions? And be kind. Remember we are
> doing this for the love of radio. We don't get paid. We
> just want to break even.
>
> Thanks to all in advance.
>
> Chico 6-Noon
> RadioKYA
>
