Six Steps to Successful Syndication

Step Four: Market Your Show to Stations

Marketing's just another word for promotion, and few syndicated shows succeed without it.

If radio stations have never heard of your show, they may be reluctant to add it. Think about your own purchasing decisions. How often do you choose a product you've never heard of? People are much more comfortable buying something that is familiar to them.

You can certainly try telephoning all 10,000 US radio stations. You'll quickly discover how tough it is convincing program directors to add your unknown show. You can also try mailing your marketing kit and demo to every station. But that will cost you a small fortune and be very wasteful, since most stations will simply toss your valuable marketing material.

What's the answer? You must find ways to affordably market your show to the entire radio industry, on an ongoing basis. That's right, you want to get your message to ALL stations, not just some stations in certain formats. We believe it's important to make EVERYONE in the industry aware of your show. With the many ownership changes, format flips, and personnel moves happening in radio today, you simply cannot predict which decision makers will be the ones to add your show. If you do the right marketing, it's very affordable to reach the entire radio universe.

This strategy, used by the most successful syndicators, works for you in two important ways.

First, it pre-sells all radio stations on your show, and makes you and your show familiar to them. Many stations may not be ready to add your show today. They may be considering a format change, and quietly scouting around for syndicated programs. An FM music program director may suddenly get handed the reins to a news/talk station, and be on the lookout for fresh shows. Sudden changes like these happen daily, and they mean opportunities for you. If you've marketed your show well, stations will add your show because they know about it. Remember, people choose products that are familiar to them.

Second, your marketing will provide you with "warm leads". These warm leads are radio people who are urgently seeking syndication for their station. When these people see your marketing, they grab the phone and ask for your marketing kit. Now your valuable marketing kit can be sent directly to interested decision makers, so you get the biggest bang for the buck. If you don't keep up your marketing, you'll never hear from these active seekers, and you'll miss many opportunities.

For best results, do an ongoing marketing campaign, and target every radio station in America. There are affordable ways to do this. We personally recommend direct mail, faxes, highly targeted print, and the web. These are the most cost-efficient, direct, and effective approaches, and these are what we use with our clients and for our own shows.

Direct mail can be do-it-yourself. Buy a list of stations, and send out a one page sales flyer that includes your phone number. Simple, but very effective. Clients of our company participate in our Radio Syndication Mailer, and you can too. It puts your sales flyer on thousands of radio manager desks. We even print the sales flyers for you! If you decide to do it yourself, we suggest frequent mailings, not a one-shot effort. Direct mail really builds recognition over time.

We also periodically send key stations a special CD, containing a collection of syndicated show demos, along with your show's contact information. This puts your audio demo in the hands of radio decision makers, at a remarkably low cost. Check out our CD Demo mailer.

Somebody once said, "Nothing happens until you advertise." This statement is especially true when it comes to radio syndication. Get the word out, and your show will grow.

We now offer a new CD Audio Seminar filled with inside secrets and tips on Syndication Marketing, hosted by Syndication.net founder Chris Witting. To learn more, just visit our Online Store.

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