How Much Does It Cost To Have Charly or Pat Talk About My Business on WOWO Radio?

The series How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on WOWO Radio? continues today with the topic of Endorsements and/or Testimonials.

First, a review:

• The Big Picture of what I can offer you because I work for WOWO radio in Fort Wayne and all of our associated marketing options.
• Why the cost of advertising is a mystery
• The price of a 1 minute commercial on WOWO
• The details of how are prices are set on WOWO including a few tips.

WOWO Radio is a News/Talk Radio station with a live and local news morning program, live and local afternoon talk show and live and local news coverage all day long.  We broadcast 24 hours a day with a news/talk format. Along with out local hosts, we carry national talk shows including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Kim Komando and Dave Ramsey.

Charly Butcher hosts Fort Wayne’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5am to 9am and the Pat Miller Program is our weekday afternoon local talk show between 3pm and 6pm.

A few times each hour of their programs, Charly and Pat will talk for about a minute about a local business.  These are usually paid commercials and paid testimonial endorsements.

Let me explain.

Instead of playing a prerecorded ad, these testimonial endorsements are the radio personalities talking about their experiences with the company product or service and they are adding their stamp of approval.

This type of advertising carries extra weight and credibility with listeners.  The trust and goodwill of Charly and Pat is transferred to the business that is being endorsed.

Not every business qualifies for this.  Charly and Pat must approve any ads that they are putting their names on in this manner.  There is a minimum level of advertising expenditures that a business also needs to commit to.  This is an advertising and marketing partnership.

We also offer a form of exclusivity for business that are receiving testimonials. Charly will only do testimonials for one business in a business category.  The same with Pat.  If Charly is doing testimonials for a muffler shop, other muffler shops can advertise, but they have to air regular ads, not the minute long testimonial endorsements by Charly.

Businesses pay an extra fee which is paid to the personality.  This is on top of the $100 per minute that the radio station receives for the air time.  Most testimonial endorsements are done live.  Each time Charly or Pat do a live testimonial endorsement for an advertising partner, they earn a $25 talent fee.  We also can do recorded testimonial endorsements and the talent fee is $50 for each new recorded 1 minute commercial.

Besides Charly and Pat, we also have two weekend hosts who earn talent fees for live testimonial endorsement ads.

And a couple of our news personalities also do testimonial endorsements.  Those are always recorded.

You may have noticed I included some leeway in what I wrote.  Just because Charly or Pat mention a business, doesn’t mean it is a paid testimonial endorsement.  They will talk about businesses that are in the news or interview someone who might be from a business that is not an advertiser.

There are also live sponsorship mentions that are about 10 seconds long that are not testimonial endorsements but are pretty powerful if used appropriately.

In summary, one of the options I may present to you for advertising with WOWO is a testimonial endorsement 60 second ad.  You will pay the regular price for the air time plus a talent fee.

Is this what you need? Maybe. Maybe not. In the past 15 months, I have only had one advertising partner use the power of a testimonial endorsement so far.  We’ll talk about this if it is appropriate, but there are plenty of other ways too.

We’ll continue this discussion on Monday. Friday I’ll have a different topic to talk about.

What questions do you have?  Drop me a note in the comments, send me a note or connect via social media.