Does Your Station Have A Digital Inventory List?

<p>Knowing there are so many options, your agency and smart local clients will ask, “What do you have available?” Unfortunately, many sellers will not have a clear answer. A radio station website alone can provide many of the same opportunities as your radio station, but as you grow your website and other digital assets, there are oh so many more opportunities to sell.</p> <p>“Inventory” is the total amount of space that you have available for advertisements at any given time. If you operate a radio station, surely your sales manager maintains an inventory list like this showing all available commercials in each hour/daypart as well as sponsorships and other on-air features that might be open for clients to purchase.</p> <p>Start with an Excel spreadsheet. Here’s what your list should include…</p> <p><strong>Regular Banner Ad Positions<br> </strong>This list will include all banner ad positions on the homepage as well as all subpages where the ad-block may be different. Make notes of each location and the size. You may also want to add the cost of ads that will be in each location so that your sellers will have a baseline to negotiate with. &nbsp;Be sure to note every position on your website and set a maximum number of available ad spots that can be sold for each one.</p> <p><strong>Post/Page Feature Sponsorships<br> </strong>For example, a storm shelter client may wish to only sponsor the top position on the weather page. Ideally, a sponsorship rate should be more than the regular “run of site” rate.</p> <p>Other examples of what to include here would be...<br> - School/Weather Closings <br> - Local Sports Team Page<br> - Obituaries<br> - Event Calendar<br> - Local Sports Category<br> - Daily Poll Sponsor<br> - Contest sponsor <br> - Pet of the Day, ____ of the Day.</p> <p><strong>Premium Sponsorships<br> </strong>These can be “out of the box” ways to give your clients exposure outside the typical banner ad space/sponsorship. A “page takeover” would be a good example of a premium sponsorship. In a page takeove