Hello Everyone,
Today I'm going to talk about my promotional experiences in my different positions at my college radio station, 88.1fm. It began with me just as another DJ when I was 18, then I became the promotional director while I was 19-20, then I took a year off where I played a more advisory role while I operated the Gamers Lounge. currently, I'm serving my final year at WBGUfm as it's Underwriting director.
As a DJ: After four years of having a radio show, which was good experience in branding. The first couple of years I went through many show names trying to find something that clicked and was marketable. Eventually a name stuck, "Alex Merced Rocks... the show" and thus began my enjoyment of personal branding. Through flyers and involvement in the community I became a highly recognized name in the community which led to my own level of local brand equity.
As Promotions Director: When I first became Promotions director I was still yet to have any marketing/promotions experience so I kind of had to make a lot of mistakes to learn a lot of basic lessons. I first started my main responsibilities which where to put up peoples flyers for their shows and secure on air giveaways. I expanded my duties into organizing events, primarily concerts. That first semester I organized three concerts, two benefit shows and a 12 hour on campus extravaganza known as the WBGUFM expo. The two benefit shows did very well and the 12 hour show ended up on fall break weekend making for a very long 12 hours.
The Following semester I learned about diminishing returns and supply/demand when i raised the number of concerts I organized from 3 the whole semester to up to 3 a week. After a semester of concert overload I toned it down a bit the following couple of semesters and kept doing the semesterly WBGUFM Expo until we did the Expo IV which afterwards I had to make my hiatus to run The Gamers Lounge. Due to my efforts at personal branding for my show, I became synonymous with the station itself for a brief time, which caused resentment against my fellow staff since I was mentioned and consulted on almost all the newspaper articles on the station that year. Being promotions director also was my first experience writing press releases and working with Media outlets and local businesses. Sadly, I no longer have any of the flyers and promotional materials I had made during this period of my life although I was only beginning to familiarize myself with flyer design and promotions at this time. It wasn't until The Gamers Lounge where I really refined my promotional skills.
As Underwriting Director: I have only started this position but after all the marketing classes the experience of running two different businesses since I've joined the station has prepared me to be an effective Underwriting director. I designed what I hope is a logically sound plan to reinvent what over the last few years has been a very unproductive Underwriting department. The reason this department has failed over the years was due to it's complicated price structure and it's lack of perceived value. By simplifying the price structure, including a few premiums, doing some research and work in the perception and position of the station the perceived value of our underwriting will increase to the point to create a workable department that can evolve beyond my time here at the station.
My time at WBGUfm has yielded for me a lot of benefits and given me a platform to learn a lot about promotions, graphics design, audio production, branding, and more. It has also helped me build many contacts within the music industry, overall a very productive time of my life.
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