In 2010 a really good friend of mine who lives in Hawaii was going through chemo, was tired, in bed and was feeling kind of un-vital. She wanted something to do and asked if I had a project I could throw her way. So I said sure and gave her a list of every station I was doing AND the competition.
I asked her to:
1. Go to the site and find a promotion or event or morning show feature.
2. Go to the jock bios and pick out one of two of the talent.
3. Click on their email link (it was 2010, jock bios always had emails)
4. Introduce yourself as being new to the market, you loved the station and (ask a question about the promotion, event or morning show feature)
5. And then track the response time and rate.
She’s an accountant so her detail skills are great (she kicked cancer’s butt)(yea!) and she created a spreadsheet of the project.
The response rate was pretty pathetic. Under 40%.
No one at 92.3 NOW-FM in NYC replied and when Dom came down on them like a ton of bricks they were indignant: “No one uses email anymore! They use Facebook!” Then don’t have the freaking email link. Anyway, she did the same thing to them with email the next month and got no replies.
That’s like reaching out to Apple customer service and asking about how to get a new phone accessory and them not replying.
She’s done it five or six times over the past 9 years including on Instagram and Twitter.
So, this is something that you should ask a non-Radio person to do with YOUR cluster. And obviously, don’t tell anyone on the staff that you’re going to do this
The instructions were:
1. Go to the station Facebook page.
2. Find a STATION post, not some autopost spam. But something promoting a remote, an appearance, a morning show event or feature, a giveaway or any other kind of promotion.
3. Find a post where she’s the first person to comment and not get lost in 120 people asking if Kruz will be hosting another first responder event.
4. And then ask a question that BEGS a reply. A direct question that shows an interest in participating or attending.
One problem that my tester saw in a recent run of my clients is that some had not had a “station post” in days. It was all auto-post spam. There wasn’t a post from the morning show about a guest, or a post about a contest or an upcoming concert that she could ask “Are you going to have any tickets to give away?” It was all “Cardi B has a new fashion muse!” stuff. Ugh.
Do this a couple of times a year just to keep people on their toes.
Oh, and also troll the competition.
A couple of years ago a listener was on a station Facebook page in San Francisco and asked on a Bruno Mars post, would the station have more tickets for giveaway.
No reply.
A little later in the day he asked again. And then the next morning. The next afternoon and finally he just commented “Does anyone actually work there?”
That’s when Carlos Pedraza from 99.7 NOW-FM jumped, introduced himself and said “Your tickets are over here with your name on them. Just bring an ID.” The guy went crazy posting about how awesome NOW was.
It’s the little stuff.
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