By Eric D. Lazar

Broadcasting, whether television or radio, is an industry that appears to be glamorous and cutting edge to the average viewer.

For the insider, local broadcasting is, more often than not, a parochial existence based out of run-down offices hot-wired to a few satellites and a distant transmitter tower. 

Breaking from the standard sales mantra of peddling a schedule, ratings trends, estimating new programming (remember Shasta McNasty?) and perhaps a pushing through a retread sponsorship opportunity for a local charity, anything else remains virtual blasphemy to most broadcast managers. 

Local broadcasting is a sanctuary where out-of-the box opportunities presented themselves as Web banners, customized jingles, weather tickers and the ever-so-rare non-traditional revenue that comes through good corporate citizenry initiatives ? with about the same frequency of success that one sees Haley?s Comet on a sunny day.

 
And so it goes, television, radio, and for that matter, print, continue to function as they always have, like a hamster on wheel, doing the same thing over and over and never gaining traction. 

Albert Einstein defined this repetitive cycle with the expectation of getting different results, as nothing other than ?insanity.?

Touched by a text
The challenges that broadcasters face are nearly identical coast to coast: shrinking ratings, smaller budgets, challenged programming, fickle relationships and a turnstile of sales people who exhausted the same recycled client list with nothing new to offer. 

However, unlike many in the broadcasting space, there were a few individuals who had the fortune to be working for visionary organizations during what were the early days of mobile marketing. 

Those lucky account executives who found safety in these haven stations during this era, had among the first glimpses inside the crystal ball of mobile media convergence. 

In 2006, there was one particular station which was among the first to beta-test a mobile marketing solution that enabled local sales representatives to integrate SMS alerts and coupons by leveraging the power of television and incorporating mobile calls to action in all aspects of the advertiser?s efforts.  

While its initial success is a matter of perspective, there is no doubt that the sales team had their appetite whetted and their destiny determined. It was time to break from the bondage of traditional media and begin interfacing like true digital evangelists. 

Coupling the broadcast experience with that of top-rated mobile mentorship, dissecting the opportunities in the local broadcast world seemed boundless. 

Nevertheless, even those few stations that had already crossed the threshold still typically saw mobile, and more specifically, texting, as an exciting way to execute a contest: 15-second sponsored promotion spot, followed by the user texting in and completed with a SMS message notifying the winner. 

Does it work? Sure. Is it compelling? Maybe. Does it solve an issue? Absolutely not. 

The long tail of mobile is in developing a strategy, and not a standard broadcast strategy of ?How are we going to increase share on the same 25 accounts we go to every year?? 

This is real strategy with ongoing, easily executable tactics that have long-term and exponentially increase rewards that can survive market swings.

Join the club
So where to begin? It starts with building a mobile club for the station, incentivizing viewers or listeners to join the station?s mobile community via a contest and asking them to remain opted-in to receive on-going alerts, discounts, offers and insider information on a continuing basis. 

Think of how often a station runs a sponsored contest, receives entries that include names, addresses and perhaps an email, but does not entertain a plan to reach back out for future engagements. 

Yes, all that effort and expense to collect valuable information generally gets expunged once the winner is picked.

Take a moment to consider that database marketing is a multibillion dollar industry that thrives on verifiable psychographic and demographic data points. What better way to facilitate its collection en masse than through the use of a broadcast property? 

How does this translate for the benefit of the station?  Do stations not live and die by Nielsen or Arbitron ratings, and would it not be beneficial to send your viewers or listeners targeted messages designed to get them to tune in as a stunting tool? 

What about leveraging the database to go up against direct mail? With mobile coupons typically seeing double digit redemption levels, a station?s ability to have a critical mass of several thousand subscribers is more than enough to drive sales for a local advertiser.

Beyond just creating a mobile club for the station, by partnering with a best-in-class mobile provider, it is quite easy to develop client specific mobile solutions, whereby every advertiser can have its own unique mobile loyalty solution. 

Is it not compelling to go to market telling the local furniture, automotive or quick serve restaurant client that they too can incorporate a text call-to-action in their commercial? 

Viewers are not merely seeing or hearing the commercial, but they are able to interact with it, potentially receiving a mobile coupon specific to them and driving the viewer or listener in the door and thus, proving the value of your station beyond the monthly post analysis. 

To round out the offering, a mobile coupon redemption service that can track the use of mobile offers specific to the individual user and can be integrated for the advertiser, giving the station never before insights into the impact of its station on a client?s business, otherwise known as return on investment.

Text almighty
Indeed, the best part of having a comprehensive mobile program is that the data ? mobile phone numbers and other individual data points ? collected are housed at the station and never shared with the client. 

If the client wishes to send ongoing alerts, coupons and other traffic driving initiatives via text, it will need to do so through the station. 

Many broadcast executives may start hyperventilating as they now consider the possibilities, seeing the sky opening up and a glowing hand ? with phone clutched in the other ? reaching down to take them into broadcast salvation. Fantastic, as this is the truth, the indisputable stone tablets of mobile marketing. 

Finally, a broadcast station has leverage like it never had. Between maintaining ownership of the client?s mobile database along with point-of-sale mobile coupon redemption technology, stations not only know who the advertiser?s customers are, but can connect with them anytime, in the way they most prefer.

Million-text march
However, for those who thought the story ended there, you would be sadly mistaken. 

There are opportunity costs and revenue makers being missed every day. 

Just as an unsold spot is lost income which can never be made up, so it goes for mobile inventory. 

In the course of doing what every station does ? news or entertainment, providing valuable services to its viewing or listening community ? there are stations that have chosen to allow its audience to opt-in for critical mobile alerts and daily updates for a variety of informational tidbits such as news, school closings, weather, traffic, horoscopes and gossip. 

Each of those text alerts is inventory and sponsor-worthy messages delivered directly to consumers who have requested the information and have significantly greater propensity to act than virtually any other medium. 

In fact, in a small Midwest market, a 100+ DMA, a station built a mobile subscriber list that exceeded 35,000 users. These opt-ins sought to receive breaking weather and school closing text alerts. 

For those who recall the winter of 2009-10, there was plenty of snow, some hellacious storms and lots of kids stranded at home to make their parents bonkers. 

In the course of 31-odd days between December and January, this station sent out more than 1 million messages. For any media buyers out there, that is 1 million sponsor-worthy impressions. 

Indeed, there were more impressions generated on a phone, delivering the most important information a consumer could seek, in a totally uncluttered environment than there are people in the entire DMA. This folks, makes for a compelling one-sheet.

TXT of revelations
Of course, non-believers will line up and venomously spew that this is heresy. Well, we all know where they are going and we may probably see them there for some other things we have done in life, d--n that month in Thailand! 

But for those potential converts who may argue that sales people just have too much on their plate to be effective at selling another third-party project, let us submit the following for consideration: Mobile needs to be viewed through the lens where it is seen as a layer, not a silo. 

All too often, broadcasters team up with independent companies in some sort of convoluted revenue share agreement. It is the temporary hot topic, reps go wild making appointments, cram a few deals through to hit their personal budget and then, once the heat is off, retreat to their comfort zone of selling spots and dots. 

Familiar scenario? It should ? as it happens at nearly every television and radio station across the country day after day. 

Mobile done right is a component in a holistic media package, extending the opportunities that a sales staff has to offer by bringing solutions that integrate and enhance the proven effectiveness of the screen or dial. 

With the legacy relationships most stations have with the market?s core advertising clients, mobile is surprisingly easy to introduce and incorporate.

Mobile elevates the station from being merely one of many stations on the buy to the only station providing a comprehensive mobile marketing solution to advertisers for that market and beyond. 

In the end, mobile ties clients to stations in a way that has never been done before.

So, as we come to an end, imagine yourself on the scene of ?The Exorcist,? with the head of an old-school general manager spinning around as he is tied to the bed vulgarly cursing every word within these pages. 

With the calmness of Father Karras, all any mobile apostle can do is simply wave our iPhones above his head and repeatedly utter the words, ?Mmay the power of mobile compel you.?
 
Eric D. Lazar is vice president and managing director of sales at Cellit, Chicago. Reach him at .