Pending Business: Father’s Day
By Steve Lapa
Lapcom Communications Corp
President
You have still have six weeks to make Father’s Day your sales success. Stop taking for granted, this always undersold 100-plus-years-old celebration.
Father’s Day is a $20 billion business that rarely dominates a radio sales meeting. Did you have a full sales meeting devoted to selling into the Father’s Day gift giving cycle?
Your most valuable sales asset, your on-air personalities, can be helpful in brainstorming, collaborating, even creating unique sales opportunities. They know their audience.
The National Retail Foundation projects only an $80 difference in the average gift spends between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Still the typical radio ad sales team rarely takes the time necessary when it comes to brainstorming this annual opportunity. Unlike Mother’s Day where “natural” categories like flowers, candy, dinner, spa days, even jewelry make the annual target list, what does your target list look like for Father’s Day? How creative is your Father’s Day planning… especially since neckties are still out?
Could it be because Father’s Day was hatched in Spokane, Washington as a complement to its senior partner, Mother’s Day?
It really doesn’t matter. These takeaways may help guide your thinking as you approach any holiday marketing. Let’s start with a Father’s Day profile that should broaden your thinking:
— Forget the old school. Consider this: 81% of gift givers are looking for “unique” or “experience” oriented gifts. A true opportunity to open your prospecting targets. Would Dad enjoy a weekend staycation?
— Like it or not online shopping is becoming the norm, yet when it comes to Father’s Day, nearly 50% are still shopping at retail locations. Another reason to freshen up that prospecting list.
— Despite inflation, 76% of Americans will celebrate Father’s Day.
— The average spend is projected at $171. Not exactly Christmas numbers, but welcome income to any retailer.
Sellers and managers often overlook obvious income opportunities that could come easily. Chances are your local talent have a connection to Father’s Day that could make a difference on a sales call. Don’t overlook the opportunities right in front of you as you approach the next sales call.
Happy Father’s Day!
Steve Lapa is the president of Lapcom Communications Corp. based in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Lapcom is a media sales, marketing, and development consultancy. Contact Steve Lapa via email at: Steve@Lapcomventures.com. Steve Lapa will be moderating the “Generating Revenue” panel at TALKERS 2023 on Friday, June 2 at Hofstra University.
of South Florida-based Lapcom Communications Corporation – a consultation and marketing firm that specializes in helping radio stations and program providers stay afloat financially and actually thrive in these uncertain times of digital media disruption. 
His career goes back more than four decades during which he has served in various management capacities at some of the nation’s biggest radio and television operations in addition to working with major names in talent. Harrison and Lapa engage in a productive chat about the existential challenges facing radio as well as some of the age-old techniques of sales and marketing that withstand the test of time. Lapa, who will be moderating the sales panel at the forthcoming TALKERS 2023 conference on June 2, states, “We have to get radio out of the emergency room and into recovery.” 
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