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Free Radio Publicity for your Business

Small Business Marketing

Free Radio Publicity for your Business

Written by Rayzelle Forrest Young for Gaebler Ventures

Are you looking for free advertising? This article explains how to get free radio publicity for your business.

Everyone loves to win free prizes, especially radio listeners.

How many times have you heard an excited radio listener say "this is the first time I've ever won anything and I'm so excited". Radio stations conduct contests and giveaways in order to increase their listening audience. Running these types of promotions is a regular part of their marketing tactics and stands to be very beneficial to the businesses that participate in them.

As an entrepreneur, it is a smart move to piggyback on their promotional tactics to get free publicity for your business. You can do this by offering to provide the prize for a contest or giveaway and let the station give out information about the provider of the prize, thus your business. Here is how it can be done.

Decide On A Prize

When deciding on a prize to giveaway it is ideal to choose something that is related to your business. If you find that you don't have anything business related to offer for the contest then it's just as beneficial to use a quick and affordable prize. This could include a t-shirt, gift cards, movie tickets, coffee mug or even books and DVDs. The purpose of the contest is to get your business free publicity so the prize itself does not have to be expensive.

Choose A Station

Make a list of possible radio stations to contact. When choosing a station to host your prize giveaway, think about who their listening audience is. You of course want to approach a station that has an audience that will use your products or services. If the audience is not the right demographic then your efforts to get free publicity are a total waste of time. If you are running a daycare business you wouldn't want to approach a radio station that has a listening audience made up of primarily seniors. More than likely, they have grown children and probably have no need for your services.

Contact Stations

Contact the stations on your list with a simple phone call. Let them know who you are and what you do before offering to donate a prize for a contest. You may come across a few radio stations that just had a giveaway and aren't ready to do another one yet or for whatever reason won't use your prize. This won't happen too much as stations love to run contest to increase their listeners.

Let Station Do The Work

Throughout the contest the radio station will be using your company name over and over in order to promote the giveaway. This allows your business name to be heard by tons of listeners and is great free publicity. Once a contest or prize is won, the radio station usually gives out additional information pertaining to the company that provided the prize.

Rayzelle is an entrepreneur and writer. Based on her experiences as an owner of her own dance studio, she will share her personal tips on being a successful entrepreneur.