Promotions and Contesting as a Marketing Tool

 I was talking to someone in the Public Relations industry the other day, and it reminded me of a story from my broadcasting career.

Not to go too deep into my resume, but I was the morning talk host and program director at WMMB in Melbourne, FL in the mid 2000s. As part of my duties as a talk host, I booked guests, mostly local political figures, to add to the content on the show. I also got pitched potential guests by PR firms, a lot of them authors peddling a book, but there was the odd expert representing a company or product. If the idea for the interview, the pitch, was not just an opportunity for them to sell their product or service then I would consider it. If the expert had a genuinely interesting topic, followed by a brief plug for whatever they were selling, then I thought it was good trade off. This is what is now what is called "content marketing," only on traditional media.

One such guest was an expert on whole home generators, and other systems for when the power goes out. This was a common occurrence on the Space Cost area of Florida, a prime target for hurricanes and tropical storms. His appearance on my show was pitched by a press release from a PR firm, hired by the manufacturer. We chatted about how to shop for the right generator, using it safely, determining how much to spend, etc. He then gave his plug and the listeners got a few minutes of informative radio in return. 

After my show, I got a follow up call from the PR firm, thanking me for having the guest on the show. At one point in the conversation they apologized for not letting us giveaway a generator on the show, as that would have been cost prohibitive considering the number of stations that had booked interviews with the guest.

Here is where the story takes a turn. As part of my role as management for the radio station, I was involved with  designing and implementing promotions and giveaways to help market the station. This was before a lot of the contests went national, like the $1000 an hour giveaway that iHeart does now. We had to work with what we got from sponsors, like concert tickets, free food, merchandise. Sometimes we traded ad time for items to give to our listeners. Most of the time, the contests were won by what we called "prize pigs," people who obsessed with winning stuff, and would hover over the phone at home waiting for us to give stuff away. The whole idea was to make the station sound bigger, connected to the listeners, and generous.

Not a great promotion

I thought about what they said for a minute, and came up with a suggestion. I told them they should have given us a qualifying prize, like a hat, or a flashlight for when the lights go out. People go crazy over swag like that. Then the winner could be entered into a national drawing for a larger prize, or even better we could have directed people to a website to enter the contest online. That would have given the generator company a lead list to market to, wither by email or direct mail.

The publicist on the other end paused for a moment, then came back with a response that surprised me. They admitted they hadn't thought of that, then they offered to hire me as a consultant for future clients to come up with promotions. I agreed to at least discuss the idea in the future. I never heard from them again, but it felt good to get an honest complement for my idea.

Keep in mind that this was before broadcasting was using national contesting to sound bigger, before  there was widespread use of online lead generation, and before anyone was using content marketing to actually drive people in the sales funnel. This PR firm had only managed to get their product some brand advertising, not actual potential customers or leads. Now this is commonplace, drive people to a website, get their email and contact info, start a drip campaign to create sales.

This all leads back to my previous article about show biz in marketing. People in the media and entertainment have been creating interest and holding an audience since man first gathered around the communal fire to tell stories. It's a short leap from there to results and revenue.