Marketing Director Tina Finch writes:

You’ll often hear us say "spread the word" and you won’t believe how important that is to us. Around a quarter of our listeners tell us they first heard about us from a friend!

We know that people won’t tune in until they know a little about us, so finding smart ways to get the message across is critical. Although we are utterly delighted with our latest record audience figures, we know there are more people who’d really enjoy what we do and the music we play if only they knew about us.

It’s a long-term job trying to get the Boom message across to the 22m people in the UK aged over 55. Big retail brands will spend millions when they launch a new product and sadly that’s not a budget we have available. There are also so many radio stations these days, all fighting to be heard.

We’re delighted that we’ve been able to invest a little in TV marketing recently. You may have seen the ad where Boom listener Sandy tells of how she felt at a Beatles gig. That ad used the line ‘We’re here because you were there’, which we think sums up well what we’re all about. We exist because you - and we – were around in those heady days. The slogan was dreamt up for us by proud boomer Graham Daldry, who was also behind the brilliant ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ commercials.

Alongside the TV campaign, you may also see our advertising on Facebook. We invest money to make sure those ads pop up in as many people’s timelines as possible – and that certainly works for us.  One of those ads has even featured some of your comments about us – so, thank you!

If you pick up a copy of Saga, Best, Prima, Inside Soap or My Weekly magazines, for example, you’ll see us in there too. We’ve been working recently on a new ad creative for magazines and Facebook, and some of you have generously sent in your old photos from the ‘70s to help us with that. We’ve had ‘outdoor’ advertising from time to time too, with electronic posters in cities across the UK.

All that’s alongside the welcome coverage we receive in the national press, including their online coverage.  That works really well for us, and our station has been mentioned many times in the pages of the Daily Mail, The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Sun. It's also brilliant when we grace the pages of the Radio Times.

Some of the press stories revolve around your stories or your views, which is why you’ll often see questions in our surveys about topical issues. Every time you answer one of our surveys, it might help us get another newspaper mention.

We are always hungry for coverage and one of the best things for us was being featured on This Morning on ITV a couple of times. Alongside all this, our presenters are out and about giving talks where possible.

As I said at the start – if you’d like to help us get the word out about Boom Radio, the most useful contribution you can make is to talk to your friends about us and make sure they can find us on their DAB+ radio or Alexa – or wherever! Thank you for your support - it means a lot – and our audiences couldn’t have grown the way they have without you.

Tina.