How the Summit Inspired WKDZ-FM to Set a $250K Revenue Goal

Media industry conferences often cover several aspects of the business and you spend time jumping from one topic to the next, but at the Second Street Summit, all of my focus on was on promotions. That was eye-opening for me, and forced me to get very focused on that division of our company.

The opportunity to talk to my peers at the Second Street Summit and to see how other people are running their programs was super valuable. I was able to talk with other media professionals who were making money with promotions and who had successful plans of action. That gave me the motivation and encouragement to take a hard look at how we were doing with promotions, and how we could improve.

A couple weeks after I got back, I created a team within our company – Think Tank Tuesday. We meet every week for an hour, and each person on the team is responsible for one aspect of New Media – promotions, social media, email database, deals, video, and websites. The team includes our Director of Business Development, New Media Specialist, Webmaster, and Sales Assistants, as well as our Program Directors, who are responsible for all of our station’s content. When we meet, each member of the team gives a quick report, and we brainstorm how we’re going to grow each area.

After the Second Street Summit, regular meetings of a cross-departmental team have helped us put an increased focus on digital. Instead of just me, there are 6-7 people who are constantly talking and looking for ways to make our promotions better.

One of the first things we did as a team was to plan ahead and set goals for the upcoming year. We plan to make at least $250,000 with New Media, and that’s a big number for a small market like ours. It’s pushing us out of our comfort zone and forcing us to really make promotions an important focus. To make our goal more manageable, we broke the big number down into smaller goals for each promotion type and laid out a promotions plan for the year. Having this structure gave us the organization we needed to succeed.

As you’re setting goals, it’s important to realize that you have to figure out what will work in your market. We’re small and may not be able to charge the same rates that companies in larger markets can, but we can still generate significant revenue with promotions.

Attending the Second Street Summit also helped me understand how many different ways there are to generate revenue. Seeing what was out there helped us see what was possible for our market.