How to Set Up Remote Broadcasts to Promote Your Business

What Is a Remote Broadcast?

A remote broadcast is when a local radio station comes to your business and offers a real time on-air broadcast right from your business location. Depending upon the technology of the radio station, some remote broadcasts are simply completed with phone lines, while other require the use of a radio station van equipped with remote technology.

A remote broadcast is set up by your radio ad representative and local radio personalities. While the goal is to get listeners to come to your business as a promotional tool, you can also use them to participate in community fund drives that will also bring customers to your door.

Setting Up the Remote Broadcast

As a car dealer, I’ve used remote broadcasts several times and for different reasons. Here’s the best way to design and set up your remote broadcast to promote your business through the radio:

• Conception - Meet with your employees or partners and determine what it is you want to promote. You may want to promote special pricing for one day only, introduce new products or inventory, or participate in some sort of community drive to get people inside your business. Once you’ve made the decision on what you want to advertise during your remote broadcast, gather the tools you’ll need.
• Broadcasting Tools - When promoting specials for one day, make sure you have enough inventory available for the traffic that walks through your door as a result of listening to the broadcast. If you are promoting something new, have enough staff and inventory on hand to introduce the product. If you are participating in a community fund-raising drive, you can still promote your business by designing displays that will grab the attention of the people who visit your business. Promotion during a radio broadcast is more than having a radio personality at your doorstep. Make sure you design displays that are easy on the eye, clean, neat, and desirable.
• Refreshments & Activities. - You can decide on whether you want to provide a cool drink, some baked goods, and balloons or face painting for kids. Remember face painters will charge a fee for face painting. Determine what will work best for your business by working with your ad rep and their past experiences.
• Celebrities - Beyond your radio personality, consider another local celebrity like a beauty pageant queen or local sports hero. Ask your radio ad rep to help you with this. Remember, most local celebrities will charge a fee to appear.

Image Credit (Google Images-Bay Area Radio)

Meet With Radio Staff

The choice of the radio station can make or break your broadcasting efforts.

Think about your demographics. If you live in an area where Spanish-radio listening is prevalent, consider a Spanish-music themed station and personality. If demographics demand country music, find a country station.

Next meet with your radio ad representative and explain what you want to achieve. Based on your ideas for the broadcasting day, your ad rep will most likely recommend a radio personality that will be a good fit. For example, if you want to participate in a community fundraiser, ask your ad rep which radio personalities attend and often host these events. This will draw in more people who want to see and meet the radio personality. If you want to promote your unique product, ask the ad rep which personality is good at selling or pitching to the public.

Now you will need to decide on a time of day to hold the remote broadcast. Try to avoid times of day when everyone is at work. You can do an all-day broadcast; however, the group of people who attend will be mostly retirees and stay-at-home moms and dads. Broadcasts can even be held in varied time slots such as rush hour, after work hours, and at lunch times. If you intend on having activities for kids, hold your broadcast during non-school days. In the end, your best day for radio broadcasts will be on the weekends.

Make sure both your ad rep and the radio personality visit your business prior to the remote broadcast to pick an area that is best for set up.

During the Remote Broadcast

Your customers will expect to get something out of your remote broadcast. It could be a small gift such as a pen or sticky notes with your company name, refreshments, kid activities, or product demonstrations. They will also want to meet and talk to the radio personality or celebrity.

Ask your radio personality to hold on-air interviews with potential customers on why they stopped in. People love to talk about themselves, especially if a local celebrity is interviewing them.

If you are participating in a community fundraiser such as Toys for Tots, have the radio personality mention often what your goal is and where you stand in reaching that goal. Letting the listening audience in on how close you are to your goal will bring them to your door.

Get email addresses and telephone numbers if you can. Design a prepared guest card that will give walk-ins the opportunity to say why they came, if they are interested in any specific type of product, and include a space for them to offer their name and other pertinent information so you can build a customer database.

Make sure you provide refreshments for the radio staff throughout the broadcast.

After the Remote Broadcast

You may have made some sales during the broadcast, but more than not, you’ve peaked the interest of potential customers and now you have a stack of cards with contact information.

Don’t drop the ball on contacts and send direct mail postcards, emails, flyers, specials, discount offers, and new product information. Make these promotional advertisements appear that they are for the people who attended the broadcast; this will make them feel like a special customer.

Take a look at how well you did in sales and customer contacts. Make a budget on what it cost to hold the remote broadcast versus sales or potential sales. Create a customer database and review it often. Talk with your sales staff and radio ad rep on how you did and what you can do next time to increase traffic even further.

A remote broadcast can be a great way to promote your business whether you need walk-ins, want to introduce your new business and product or bring people in for a community drive.

Image Credit (MorgueFile)