By Dr. Kevin Nunley
Index
of Articles
What do you do when you
don't have enough cash to advertise? You trade! Trading
products and services for advertising is one of the hottest
marketing topics in business discussions. And for good
reason. Bartering for ads can give the small business
person excellent opportunity and value.
One radio station owner,
who never forgot his penny-pinching beginnings, is always
on the lookout for businesses wanting to trade. When he
needed extra storage sheds behind the studios, he got
a carpenter to build them in exchange for free commercials
on his stations. When the station promotional vehicles
required regular detailing, he traded commercials for
custom car washes. A big snow brought a private snow plow
purchased with traded on-air mentions.
The station owner figures
he has a few commercials that his sales reps won't sell.
Why not trade them to other business people who have extra
products and services they can't sell? It's a classic
WIN-WIN arrangement. And lots of media managers welcome
the situation.
Joan, who owns a very
successful donut shop, bases her advertising entirely
on trade. She gives boxes of her high-quality donuts to
select radio stations for daily giveaways. In return,
they speak highly of her donuts on the air. It's not unusual
to hear a morning DJ go on and on about how wonderful
her product is. She has a rock solid reputation in the
community as a result. The cost? A few boxes of donuts
that might be surplused anyway.
A newspaper editor reminds
us that radio isn't the only fertile ground for trade.
Newspapers frequently need traded items and services to
give away as prizes to readers, advertisers, and employees.
He advises to check with the circulation department. They
often need prizes to give to paper boys and girls.
A TV exec recently emailed
me to say that TV stations in many medium-sized and small
cities like to trade advertising for products or services.
"You'd be surprised at how flexible some TV stations are
on this," he said.
Be creative. Got a book
store? It's trendy now days for TV weathermen to publish
their own books on local weather stats. Call the manager
at your favorite TV station and offer to do a cooperative
promotion with the station. They can place the books in
your store, AND have their weatherman do in-store appearances,
in exchange for mentioning your store's locations. Offer
to help them write and publish the book.
"But I'm a Realtor,"
one man told me. "How would I trade real estate services
to a media outlet?" There is a Realtor in my town who
solved the problem. He does his own real estate show on
talk radio. Enlisted sponsors pay his on-air fees. For
the Realtor who doesn't have that show biz zeal, appearing
regularly as a real estate expert on someone else's show
can be just as effective.
Not all media outlets
do trade. Some welcome trade some times of the year and
not others. Many will do a part trade, part cash arrangement.
A great many will bonus a certain number of free commercials
or mentions when you buy ads.
No matter what you do
or sell, there is probably a newspaper, newsletter, magazine,
TV station, cable system, radio station, or on-line provider
that needs you.
