We’re officially in summer: our most patrol-able time of the year. It’s a time of recreation, and an effective way to acknowledge that is to get market-specific with your planned outreach. In the Twin Cities? It’s the lakes. That’s where you can find a hundred thousand people at any one of the dozens of metro area lakes on a Saturday afternoon.
At Emmis, we had a Budweiser-sponsored Beach Patrol with a branded Jeep. Hawaiian Tropic gave us 10,000 sample-size packets, and Bud gave us a storage unit full of swag. Every nice afternoon, we were out. Even if there was an event happening elsewhere, I would map out a course going to and coming from the event that got Jeep looping around Nokomis, Calhoun, and Harriet.
In the surveyed area, I identified 32 beaches and kept a map on the wall in Promotions. We kept track of hits, making sure not to ignore the beaches like the one on the river in Prescott or Square Lake out in Stillwater.
It was terrific marketing, and the station made a bunch of money off it.
In Charlotte, the place to find people on the weekend in the summer was at the apartment and condo pools. One summer, we did a Pool Patrol sponsored by Yoo-hoo.
The following summer, it was the Budweiser Pool Patrol; we’d go, set up, play music, and through a relationship with Chili’s, bring a few hundred wings for people to chow down on. As far as I know, no one went swimming within thirty minutes of eating, got a cramp, and drowned.
It doesn’t have to be during the summer, either. The Beat in Vancouver has gone and hit ski areas during the season. Q-104 in Halifax has stopped by skating rinks for pickup hockey games.
Personal, in-your-face marketing is always going to be dramatically more effective than spamming people with social media messages. And with few stations having the ability to do it, you can pretty much own the playing field.
And now on with the Dumpage:
Bonus Entries
If you haven’t spent a night on the Sweepstakes Advantage site, you can see what other brands are doing for social media contests, and you might pick up some ideas.
We all do click-and-register to win contests, and it’s all very exciting. If you are going to do these things, then get more from it than a like or an email address; get information to stay engaged and connected with your audience after the giveaway ends.
New Sources of Morning Show Features
I’ve never really understood why we don’t use some of the games that people do on YouTube. If two girls in Seattle can get 36 million views doing “What’s In My Mouth,” that’s not entirely awful. James Corden has a ton of these, too.
Innuendo Bingo started at the BBC, and Alphabeticall has been a great follow-up segment.
Up On The Roof
An OM to remain nameless has a band coming through that, essentially, the label says, “Do whatever you want with them.” The Beatles did their final show on the roof of their studio. U2 did a show on the roof of a liquor store and turned it into a video. What if you took a band and put them on the roof of a gas station, and you pumped while they played?
Easiest Weekend to Throw Together?
Jamz 96.3 had Wendy’s coupons and some movie tickets for “Cheap Date Weekend.” I’ve seen stations throw in a bus fare and a bag of pre-popped popcorn to sneak into the theater.
The Girl Ain’t Quite Right
Laura Daniels at WHTT in Buffalo once did a Silent Lip Sync on her social media, with people trying to ID what song she was singing. She posts the answer with the audio added to the video the next day, with a new Silent Lip Sync video.
Sharemony
Wedding season is about to crash down on us, and what do guests do? They eat. They drink. They dance. And they take tons of photos and share them on social media. This is like little kids going back to school with backpacks in late August. If they’re going to be taking these pics, they should be sharing the photos with your station, too. Use a hashtag and incentivize engagement with prizes or tickets.
Crash ‘N Splash
A station that sadly must remain nameless is going to start crashing listeners’ weekend backyard pool parties. They’ll show up, eat your food, do cannonballs, share some pics, and move on. This could be sold to soft drinks, pizza/sub places, clients that sell bags of ice, whatever. And “add a fool to your pool” comes from a very wordsmithy Promotions Director.
Shock Ball Challenge
The Shockball Challenge is something that just about every YouTuber with a load of followers has done, and they tend to average about 2 million views. The screams will sound great on the morning show, but the video is the payoff.
Dad Jokes
It’s definitely a thing, so make it your station’s thing for Father’s Day.
Either kids share the lamest jokes their dad has ever told as a social media feature. Or you actually work with a comedy club client, do a “funniest dad” contest, and the winner gets coaching from an actual comic and gets a quick five-minute opening set.
