Laura Kruszewski Interview

Laura Kruszewski
Marketing & Public Relations Manager
Family Life Radio 
Tucson

Career Capsule: Recent MBA graduate with a 16-year career in marketing and events. Started out at my favorite place, the mall! I was the marketing assistant, which included managing relationships with over 100 retailers and planning events like fashion shows. From there, I went on to the be the marketing manager for the largest trade association in southern Arizona, the Tucson Association of REALTORS®. I did everything from designing flyers, social media and PR to coordinating a real estate trade show with 100+ exhibitors. After six years there, I made a huge shift and was the marketing manager for Whole Foods Market (before Amazon took over!) in Tucson until 2016 when I was hired by Family Life Radio!

 Laura, tell us what’s new at Family Life Radio & new with you etc… ?

Family Life Radio is busying working on fun and innovative ways to connect with our listeners! Our marketing team are putting together a few things – to hopefully be released next year. Stay tuned for that! The on air and promotions teams are planning exciting campaigns and opportunities to further minister to our listeners.

As far as what’s new with me, I’m enjoying my job as Aunt Laura, cuddling with my newest great niece, she’s two months old. I have a total of 13 nieces and nephews and two great nieces who all happen to live in town. I am also continuing my health and wellness journey. Still coffee free since March (this is the most insane statement I have ever made!). Also, this year, I stretched myself outside of my comfort zone, joining a local gym that pushes me to go beyond the realms of normal weightlifting! Let’s just say I never cared about how much I could bench press or deadlift until this year. And just a plug here – ladies – you are stronger than you realize! God has really given me the strength and endurance to keep going on those days where I just want to say home from the gym and eat bon bons.

How has your job changed or shifted during the pandemic? 

We had to adjust and learn how to communicate digitally. Our team handled it very well. We still had our usual staff meetings to make sure we were on track with projects and tasks so that helped us. We are back in the office however, I’m really glad because it’s easier to bug people when they’re 10 feet away.

What are the 3 main ingredients to make a promotion successful?

Always think of the listener, communication and be organized! You always want to think of your end user, which in this case is the listener. Who are they, what appeals to them, is this the best we can do for the listener and is it to their benefit? Second, having each step of your promotion organized, from the on-air spot script to how your marketing team will support it, is essential. Lastly, communication is key. Many times, you have various teams working on a promotion, so keeping everybody in the loop on changes is vital.

What is the best promotion advice you’ve been given? The worst?

We do promotions throughout the year, educating listeners on estate planning. We have several options for the listener including an online wills planner. Instead of the same old campaign with on air spots, email and a couple social posts, I suggested adding a human element to it. This meant incorporating one of our on-air hosts in a promotional video, the emails came from her, that sort of thing. It ended up working out really well and we had the highest response in recent years!

I can’t quite think of a worst off the top of my head. But I do have to say, there have been times where I wish I had spoken up when I didn’t think a direction they were going the best idea…and things did not turn out well. Lessons learned!

What is the one thing YOU must have to do your job every day?

The grace and strength of God! 😉 Really though. I lean on the Lord for wisdom, direction and support. He fuels my decisions and steps!

In your opinion what makes the ideal station promotion?

I always ask myself: is it benefiting the listener? Also, making sure that what we are doing on air is being complemented well digitally. For example, do the graphics on the website emphasize what we are trying to get across? Does the social activity encourage people to want to tune in to see what’s going on? Have we thought the promotion through from A to Z, covering any possible concerns or questions that might come up in the web copy and scripts?

Regarding social networking and promotion, what have you had the most success with?

We have a great Digital and Social Communications Specialist who stays on top of all the trends, it’s always changing! I will say a few years ago, we decided to make Facebook groups run by our promotion coordinators for our local markets. These have been a great way to stay connected to the community and also get better visibility in the follower’s news feed.

How do you measure the success of a great promotion?

If I had to venture into our promotion director’s brain, he would say, “Did help our cume grow?” I’m not in the studio, but I would also measure the success based on the feedback from listener calls. As a marketer, we can gauge how a promotion is going digitally through measuring web, email and social media metrics.