Want Bigger Attendance At Your Community Events? Do This.

Hi guys, for a long time now we've taken local events, charity events, community events, and other announcements from you guys to tell everyone about on the air. 

And that's definitely part of the gig. It's part of why we're here, and it's a big part of why we were considered "essential" during the pandemic.   We tell you what's going on.

Your church group, local organization, club, whatever, can definitely submit your goings on to us to announce for free.  Want to tell us about your Lord's Acre Sale? Sure!  Wanna have a Bake Sale? Gotcha! Chili Supper?  Yummy! Fun Run?  Got it! Trivia Night?  All of it!  Tell us all about it.

The best way to let people know about what you're doing is to run an ad.  You know it, I know it.  You're guaranteed a number  of times your announcement will be on each station every day, digital presence, etc.  However, that does cost money.  Now, having said that, I get some of you are operating on shoe string budgets or on personal donations, so you can't pay to guarantee you'll get ads on the air.   And maybe you're only doing a smaller event...and yeah, you want people, but not as many as a huge race night or something like that. Maybe you want a couple dozen and not a couple hundred, so you don't want to risk an ad. I get it.

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Let me tell you how to get the most out of your local community announcements.  Tell us in advance.  And I don't mean one or two days beforehand. As soon as you have a date, time, and venue set, send us that email.  Even if it's months in advance. That's where most of you kind of miss the trick.

I'll explain. The way radio advertisements work is through frequency and repetition. Each time you hear an ad or an announcement, your brain picks up another little detail to "hear" and  keep.  Here's an example.  Let's say you're listening in the car on the way to work.  You're listening, but you're also watching the road, so you're not giving your 100% focus to the radio.   You hear an ad for... oh, I don't know.  Unicorn Cleaning.  You think, "Oh, I didn't know that was a thing."  Then, the next day, you're going home.  You hear the ad again. You hear that the Unicorn Cleaning is based out of Sedalia.  "Oh, great, they're here in town.... I wonder where they are..."    The first time you might only hear what it is, next time you might hear when, by the third time you might remember where it is, etc.  And once it sticks in your brain, it's there for good, unlike maybe a sign you only see once and forget about. Not that there's anything wrong with signs, you know what I mean.

So if you tell us about your event, like... (I don't know.  Let's make up one) a cake walk to benefit paying for the gasoline costs of the Unicorn Doctor.   Ya'll decide in June you're going to have the event in September.  Great! That gives you plenty of time to plan and get the word out and get sponsors and donations and all that great stuff. Send us an email then to tell us about your event.  Then, we have more opportunities to announce it over the air over the coming months.  The more times the audience hears it, the more likely they are to remember it, and therefore make plans to attend.

If you tell us about your event two days before hand or even worse, the day of.... well.  You might get some people, but only people who don't already have plans.  If you had told us about it a month or so ago, we might have been able to reach the people who would have wanted to go if they'd known about it beforehand.  "Oh man, I love the Unicorn Doctor.  I wish I'd known -  if I'd known about the Cake Walk, I wouldn't have agreed to babysit Uncle Leprechaun this weekend!"

So, if you have a Community Calendar event, tell us about it here, or email Randy at Randy.Kirby@Townsquaremedia.com.  It's simple, it's free, and if you tell us with enough time beforehand, might give you just the amount of crowd attention you want.

Communitingly yours,
Behka