One of your better potential sources for non-spot revenue is that "unsexy newsletter" your station sends listeners.
Assuming, of course, (and this is a huge assumption) that the content of that newsletter is in tune with the interests of the audience rather than the interests of your marketing and sales staff. You see, the reason why a newsletter sells to an advertiser is because it matters to the listener, not vice versa.
Avoid putting the cart before the horse and you'll find a compelling asset waiting to be read and waiting to be bought.
And in case you're tempted to give away the newsletter for nothing to get the on-air buy, read this from Business Week:
Ted Rheingold, founder and chief executive officer of Dogster…discovered that AdSense would yield about 28¢ per 1,000 times the ad is seen (for a CPM of 28¢, in industry parlance)….In addition to letting Federated Media sell some inventory, Dogster built its own Web sales force, setting CPMs at $8 to $20. But even that pales compared to what he charges advertisers per 1,000 views of an ad on his e-mail newsletter: a whopping $20 to $40.
So the more focused your medium and the closer to the client and the customer you are and the better tuned your content, the higher your rate – because your stuff is worth more.
So how many of your listeners are part of your email dialogue? How many of them are in relationship to your station via email? What is that worth?