CKNG | Joe FM | Edmonton | Corus | Soft Rock
Joe FM is one of the most popular workplace radio stations in Edmonton. There are a lot of people in the city who listen to the station for 8 hours a day—more if they also listen to Joe during their commute to and from the office—so getting your message out to Joe FM can be very helpful to organizations trying to reach a wide and demographically diverse audience. Joe's website provides a few ways of doing just that.
There is, of course, the option of trying to get Joe to act as a media sponsor for your event. This will get you mentioned on-air repeatedly, as well as on the station's website. This, of course, isn't an option that everyone will be able to take advantage of.
But, it is possible to make use of the station's website to help get your message out to the audience.
First, check the station's “Contact Us” page. They provide email addresses for everyone you might want to get in touch with: the program director, the on-air talent, the sales department, and the promotions people. If you've got news that the Joe FM audience might want to hear, try sending your news release to the appropriate person at the station.
If you're up for more guerrilla tactics, the station does have a blog. Maureen Holloway—who provides the Last Word on the morning show—has a blog called MoreMo that allows comments. If you've got information that is relevant to one of her blog posts, leaving a comment can't hurt. At worst, it might get deleted (though, as long as you're not spamming, this is unlikely). At best, you'll get your message out to Maureen's readers and possibly even an on-air mention.
Maureen Holloway's blog
The trick to using blog comments as a marketing tool is to make sure that your comments are completely relevant to the topic at hand, and that they will provide genuine value to either the blogger or her readers. Ideally, you should read the blog regularly and become a part of the community by posting comments that are not commercial in nature.
Once you've established a certain level of trust with the author and her audience, you can probably get away with dropping the occasional self-promotional link in your comments. But, if you try that before you've built up enough trust, you might just find your comment getting sent into the void...along with any comments you might try to post in the future.
Joe FM doesn't appear to have an official presence on Facebook, although there is a fan-created group with about a dozen members on board. It doesn't have any activity on it, though, so it's probably not worth pursuing as part of a social marketing campaign.