JOHN LANDECKER and THE SOLUTION TO THE “COME TO THE RADIO STATION AND PICK UP YOUR PRIZE” PROBLEM

Predictably, yesterday’s blog post unleashed a firestorm of responses — some agreeing with me, others vehemently disagreeing.

To the people who talked about the excitement of visiting the radio station and meeting the DJs: It can be exciting if doing so is the listener’s choice. But forcing them to come to the station? Bad idea.

For every radio person who fondly remembers going to the local radio station and meeting some superstar air personality, there are a thousand other people who went to the local radio station and met…

The receptionist?

A bored Promotions Assistant who hasn’t been taught how to receive customers (i.e., listeners) graciously and enthusiastically?

Some anonymous employee who said, “Oh, the person who handles that isn’t here right now. You’ll have to come back later”?

I’ll never forget a station in Indiana that gave a lucky winner two lottery tickets…which had to be picked up at the radio station, during normal business hours.

I thought, “Wow! In Indiana, lottery tickets must sell for 20 or 30 dollars each! Certainly they wouldn’t expect a listener to invest the time to drive downtown during a business day to pick up a prize that has a projected value of 37 cents!”

Radio station managers who object to mailing such prizes invariably offer one of two reasons:

One is: “Yeah, but if we mail out those prizes, that postage will add up.”

The other is: “What if they say they never received the prize?”

The answer to “the postage adds up” is:

“Yes, most things do. This is an important promotional expense. If you are not prepared to make the experience you are offering your listener as positive and enjoyable as possible — if you are not prepared to do it in a way that makes the listener want to keep listening to your station — then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing that promotion or contest in the first place.”

If you truly are worried that listeners will falsely claim not to have received their prizes, use a delivery service that requires a signature upon receipt. This can be the Post Office’s Certified Mail; it can be United Parcel Service; it can be a courier service.

Managers can rationalize this issue all they want, but here is how listeners view it. This is a listener calling into the legendary John Landecker’s radio show, many years ago at WLS in Chicago:

(Nice touch, John’s delayed completion of the sibilance on “evidence.”)

Perhaps that listener doesn’t sound like the most articulate person in the world, but he represents the mass audience. He has compared a station that makes winners come pick up their prizes to one that mails the prizes…and the the first station looks cheap, foolish and inconsiderate by comparison.

Station managers who aren’t able to budget for postage to mail or otherwise deliver prizes should ask themselves:

“Why are we giving away prizes?”

“Because that’s what radio stations do” — Wrong answer.

“Because clients want us to” — “Clients” suggests they’re paying you, right? Fine. Build the cost of prize delivery into the package the client buys.

“Because we want to enhance the relationship we have with our listeners” — Right answer.

If you can’t deliver the prize in a way that makes the winner go “Wow!” — or at least doesn’t make the listener go, “Good grief, what a hassle,” then stop giving away prizes.

Here is a very simple idea that enables everyone to come out ahead:

Arrange a trade with a local courier service. All mid-to-large cities have such services, but few if any have a budget for radio advertising.

Do a little research and pick the best, most efficient, most professional, and friendliest service in town and present them with your proposition:

They will deliver to all of your local prize winners, treating each delivery just as they would any other order.

At the end of a typical broadcast day, someone from your promotion department will call the courier service to place the order for the following day’s pick-up…using the list of that day’s winners. The next morning they pick up those prizes and by the end of the afternoon they deliver them.

You do not give up commercial inventory as part of this deal. In exchange, you give an on-air mention every time you award a prize:

“Congratulations, Janie! You’ve won dinner for two at Emilio’s Restaurant. ABC Courier Service will deliver your dinner certificate right to your door tomorrow….”

That’s the easiest “sale” you’ll make all year. But, sadly, few radio managers will make the small, one-time effort to establish a system for getting their most loyal listeners to say, “Wow!”