To close out this year’s sessions for the PromaxBDA Station Summit in Las Vegas, TV station marketers and creative service directors got up on stage to offer their peers some tips on how to get a promotion or campaign for nothing … or at least very little. It seemed to be a problem with which everyone was quite familiar. Bill Butler (above), Sinclair’s vice president of programming and promotion and PromaxBDA board member, hosted the session.

Brandon Downing, marketing and creative services director, at KSBY San Luis Obispo, Calif., shared how he and his team engaged the station’s news department, news and syndicated talent, its network affiliate team, sponsors and the viewers themselves to help celebrate the station’s 60th anniversary.

The campaign, with the tagline “Local for 60 Years,” consisted of the five following tips that involved everyone at KSBY.

1) “The news department counted down the most important 60 stories of the past 60 years. We made the countdown interactive, letting viewers go on our Web site and pick the top-ten stories. We then aired those stories daily for two weeks before the anniversary date,” he said.

2) Downing wisely recruited his network—in this case, NBC—affiliate team to help him grab talent, such as “Today"’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford and “Jeopardy!“’s Alex Trebek to record special messages for the station.

Downing also reached out to former anchors and reporters “ who are happy to help … depending on how they left,” Downing joked.

3) Downing used social media to reach out to viewers and get the word out.

4) Downing wanted to throw a party but the station didn’t want to pay for it. So he got sponsors to pay for it instead. “We converted it from an expense to unbudgeted revenue of more than six figures,” said Downing. The station had advertisers sponsor promotional segments congratulating the station on its 60 years in business, while also allowing them to get in a little advertising.

5) The station worked with sponsors to do “60 Days of Giveaways” with almost all of the prizes – from iPads to getaways to other goodies – donated by advertisers. “We had to buy a few prizes to cover a few of the 60 days but that part was still almost free,” said Downing.

When Mike Hansen, promo manager/creative services manager at WSYX/WTTE/WWHO, Columbus Ohio, was promoting that station’s new morning show, “Good Day Columbus, he and his team were on a limited budget. He got the job done, and kept costs down. Here’s how:

1) Inexpensive talent – such as your friends and family and your co-workers friends and family—is all around you.

2) Think of creative ways to interact with viewers.

“Our evening anchors have been doing great segments for Facebook only, such as playing poker in between news segments and playing Candy Crush on the giant weather screen just before going on air. We spend big budgets on image campaigns and those are free,” said Hansen.

3) Save on music. Instead of having a music company write original music for your station, which can be expensive, license a preexisting song and have the music company customize it for you for much less.

4) Use real people to get the word out. People like people. They trust their friends and neighbors more than their announcer guys.

Finally, Jeff Pitner, promotions director at KAMC/KLBK, Lubbock,Texas offered these six tips.

1) When any idea for a promo comes to you – write it down or shoot a quick video or take a picture and drop it into an idea file. You never know when you might need it.

2) Shoot and save images of your talent all the time. Constantly be taking videos and photos on the set and outside the station. When you consistently shoot, sort and save, you’ll always have fresh easy to find images of your talent when you have to produce promos of your talent in a hurry.

3) Similar to what Downing did with Hoda and Kathie Lee, when the network or a syndicated show offers a free talent tie-in, take advantage of it. It’s a cheap easy way to tie your talent with big name celebrities. In KAMC/KLBK’s case, Jimmy Kimmel stopped by to help them shoot some funny promos.

4) Remember that stock photos and stock video templates are your friends.

5) Don’t forget about using a prop as an element in your promos. Props are easy to find, don’t cost anything and help create a more attention getting promo.

6) Make sure you have access to a movie library. It’s a cheap yet valuable tool in your bag of tricks.

Image of Sinclair’s Bill Butler courtesy of Eric Jamison, Studio J Photography

Tags:


  Save as PDF