Meyer names Bell as general sales manager

by Paul Schreiber

SBJ Reporter

pschreiber@sbj.net

The new year brought a change at Meyer Communications Inc.

The company Jan. 1 named radio veteran Bonnie Bell general sales manager of its four stations: KTXR 101.3 FM, KWTO AM 560, KWTO 98.7 FM and KBFL 99.9 FM.

Bell succeeds Gene Brown in the top sales position. Brown, who retired, worked with Meyer for more than 30 years.

Bell, perhaps best known for "Morning Line," the radio show she co-hosts with auctioneer Billy Long, 7-9:30 a.m. weekdays on KWTO 560 AM, also has extensive sales experience with the company.

Employed by Meyer Communications for seven years and in radio for more than 20, Bell handled accounts and agencies as Meyer's national sales manager before her promotion, and she will retain that responsibility. She also will continue to be on "Morning Line."

Previously she served as director of nontraditional revenue for Meyer. Before joining Meyer, she was vice president of communications with International Broadcasting Network in Denver.

Production facilities and offices for Meyer's four stations and Ozark Advertising Agency are at the company's 14,000 square-foot location at 3000 E. Chestnut Expressway. Meyer employs about 70 people, 20 of whom are under Bell's sales direction.

Meyer started operating KWTO in 1992 and bought it in 1994. KWTOcelebrated its 70th anniversary in December.

Tweaking approaches

The Springfield market is changing, and Meyer Communications' approach has had to change as well.

Well-heeled national chains are increasing their inroads to the Springfield marketplace, and those chains often use national ad agencies, so sales approaches have been tweaked accordingly, said owner Ken Meyer.

His philosophy has been to take his "home-town, home-owned" identity to smaller businesses when seeking advertisers. The number of those small businesses, he added, is shrinking due to national chain incursions, as well.

"That's one reason why music stations continue to survive and are able to get money out of Chicago (and) New York agencies, which we get some, but not enough to support the staff we have. You have to find a way to bring the money in to pay for that, and that's why we've concentrated on events and sports," Meyer said.

KTXR carries St. Louis Cardinal baseball games and Southwest Missouri State University sports, while the KWTO 98.7 FM, known as JockRadio, has sports reporting, Kansas City Royals baseball, Drury sports and NASCAR coverage. "This year we're targeted toward (an) approximately 15 percent" increase from sports-related sales, said Meyer.

Getting national ad agencies on board to purchase radio spots is further complicated by the fact that many large ad houses now are subdivided into departments that only handle ads for a specific product line or a certain type of sport, Bell said. "Their targeting (is) much more narrowly defined than it used to (be)," she added.

Bell said this works as a plus for Meyer's group of stations, since their listenership is more select. Desirable target age groups have moved upward with overall population shifts as the country ages, she said. "I would say that probably a good deal of the wealth in this area, people who can actually afford to go in and buy stuff and not bounce checks, is going to be 35-plus," she said.

Businesses using radio

Businesses have come to view radio's role in advertising differently over the last 10 years, Bell said. "In broadcasting, one of the niches that sales staff go after are those areas that are not traditionally clients of radio stations."

Utilizing radio for business-to-business needs, as a verbal billboard for purposes of employee recruitment or hiring radio staff and equipment to attract public attention through on-site promotions are ways radio can generate nontraditional revenue, Bell said.

Flexibility in adapting to community trends is another reason businesses use radio, Bell said. "We don't have a printing schedule" and there's no long, drawn-out production changes to retool spots like there are for television, she added.

The oft-pondered question of how many times a radio spot should run to produce top-of-mind awareness is really a production issue, Bell said. It has to do with "consistency vs. quantity and, the bottom line, it all comes down to quality," she added. "You do have to run a spot with enough frequency that if somebody doesn't get your number jotted down the first day, they're going to get it jotted down the third day."

The sports angle

Linking advertisers with sports programming is one way Bell hopes to spike revenue dollars. "We're going to grow dramatically in our sports sponsorship and sports sales. We have the broadcast rights for SMS. We're also the exclusive broadcasters for the Cardinals and various other teams, professional and local."

In mid-November, Dave Barnett became general manager of Meyer-owned Ozark Advertising Agency. Bell hopes his previous experience selling spots for Cardinal baseball as sales representative for St. Louis-based KMOX-AM 1120 will help in securing additional businesses to sponsor Meyer's sports broadcasts.

Barnett sees "untapped markets" in sports-related programming and event sponsorship at Meyer. Every station has its own audience, but whenever St. Louis Cardinal baseball comes on fans have to go to KTXR to hear it, he said. The same is true for fans of SMSU Bears football, baseball and basketball, as well as local NASCAR enthusiasts, he added.

One way to reach the 18-to-45-year-old demographic is by buying ad time on a sports property, and knowing listeners are there, Barnett said. "Don't chase them around the dial, go where they're going to be."

Ozark Advertising Agency has been in operation since 1977, Meyer said. The agency publishes three free print publications: Parent + Family, Family Marketplace and Campus Express. About 50,000 copies of Family Marketplace are mailed each month. Campus Express is a coupon paper and available at area colleges, he added.

Parent + Family is handed out in elementary schools, Bell said.

There may be changes ahead with those publications, Meyer said. "We've either got to grow them or do something with them."