” The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”– John Maynard Keynes. …
Where do your best ideas come from?
Middle of the night inspiration after a dream?
Eating your Wheaties in the morning?
Brainstorm sessions with team members?
Later in this article we’ll hear how a Texas broadcaster got a great brainstorm idea when he was passed by a couple of motorcyclists on his drive in to the office. But first…
Everyone talks ‘game’ about pivoting. How do we pivot in this extraordinary time? So far my favorite pivot is the self-described dive bar with decent food in Queens, that faced with closure as a non-essential business, bought a couple of shelves, did a run to a local distributor and became a grocery store that could also mix you a vodka tonic to go on your way out the door with your essentials.
Pivoting and finding new ideas is a hallmark of radio.
All-news radio in the 60s.
Top 40 in the 50s.
FM in the 70s
Sports radio in the 80s.
HD in the 00s.
The list goes on…but we’ve pivoted to new ideas – formats and technologies – for decades and I can assure you we’ll do it again. So this week I wanted to highlight a couple of ideas we’ve kicked around in our weekly Zoom meeting, the No Fear Café.
VIDEO MORNING SHOW.
I know. Don’t shout me down. Video of your morning show is no big deal. But instead – what if you create a daily (or couple of times a week) sales department video. Think of it as a morning show for the business community. Talk about what the sales team hears is developing on the street. Focus is on the business community and your ability to connect. Post on social media…Facebook and Instagram and have some fun with the idea. Topics could be update on what businesses are open, personnel changes, who’s opening back up, special offers – frankly, anything of interest to the business community. Even nasty rumors…well, OK ,that’s maybe too much.
It doesn’t need to be long but make it relevant and look to create a new relationship tool in a time when you can’t just drop in on your clients. Plus, you can probably get a local financial firm to sponsor it. Careful, Facebook could block you if it gets too commercial, but with a targeted audience of local businesses, they won’t pay much attention.
POLITICAL – SHAKE DOWN
Shake down your local politicians! Ok…just kidding, kinda. This is time for local politicos to step up and support local media…give them a chance to spend say $500 to offer encouraging words to the community. Think of federal, state, county and local politicians. LUR probably doesn’t matter unless you’re in the window. Check with your lawyer on that one. We know one small market station that sold five of these packages in one day. Pivot and succeed…right?
SOCIAL DISTANCE WITH MOTORSPORTS
As I teased earlier, one of the few of us still occasionally driving into the office, Rick Mantooth of Foster Communications in San Angelo, TX was passed by a couple of motorcycles the other day. Before road rage set in, his light bulb went off! It illuminated the fact that little could be more fun while socially distancing than being on a motorcycle! So he pitched the idea to a sports vehicle shop and got them on the air. The idea works with boats, quads and even bicycles.
COSTCO
We all know…I mean KNOW that Costco does no advertising. Right? Well how about the sales rep who hadn’t heard that to be the case and called on one of the local stores. She found that while they didn’t have a formal ad budget, they did have a budget for developing membership. Costco was very interested in being part of the station’s street team at events. Realizing we’re not sure when events will return to our playbook this is a great example of getting the old ideas/assumptions out of the way!
Costco…and to a large degree many of the large box stores suddenly are in unique situations in each market. Some markets they are not considered essential…but in others they are. They have a message to give…and your radio station is the way to deliver it. What other clients have you disregarded because the ‘don’t do local advertising…”?
Just a couple of whiteboard ideas that we hope displace a couple of old ideas…pivot – no panic. Get your ideas wherever you get them, but now’s the time to pivot. Good luck!
Join us in the No Fear Café where we are creating ideas and connection with each other in our video Zoom calls. 9AM (PT) each Tuesday. Registration is required to prevent Zoombombing. Register at www.intownmedia.com
Love this, JDW!