A Guide to Mapping Sponsors to National Promotional Events for 2024

In recent years we have seen many examples of public media stations gaining traction in the marketplace with creative sponsorship packages designed to leverage special holidays and events, and align specific station content with like-minded businesses wanting to reach a specific audience. 

Think of WAMU’s successful National Hispanic Heritage Month package or TPT’s Black History Month initiative for example. Or any number of stations selling desk sponsorships or creating interstitials and events around cultural celebrations such as International Women’s Day and Pride Month. Happily, station content and sales teams are increasingly working collaboratively internally to map special station content to the marketing needs of those local businesses that can help fund and further the station’s community-facing mission. 

As we embark on Q3 – which is for many stations the slowest sales quarter of the year – it can be productive to use some of the downtime to plan ahead and get creative with developing these kinds of initiatives in the year ahead. Helpfully, the RAB has published a promotional calendar for 2024 which contains holidays and monthly, weekly, and community events that can inspire your planning and even offer a fun way to bring in prospective clients or re-energize existing ones. 

As you look through the calendar, ask yourself what promotional events make sense for your market? For your format? For the business needs of specific seasonal clients or prospects that you haven’t quite been able to close? What kinds of content might your station already produce in recognition of some of these events? What creative sponsorship inventory can you attach to that content, both on-air and digitally? 

Coming up with new ideas is a great way to start the new year!