Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Radio Website Traffic

There seems to be a common practice not to mention radio station web site traffic.  Just like the military “Don’t ask, don’t tell or you are out”.

You know how it goes at the station.  The GM never asks.  The web admin never tells.  The digital manager (the newly titled NTR person) knows but does not talk about it.  The sales manager and his entire team know and they don’t talk about it.  The on-air talent talks but they don’t know anything about the web.

We surveyed the top 100 radio stations and found only 6% of the listening audience visited the station’s website.    We did find two stations with larger online audiences than the local broadcast.

The issue is 70% of the broadcast audience has internet.   The web has a valuable place in their lives.  However, less than 1 in 10 internet connected listeners visits their station’s website.   How often do they need the station’s phone number?

Station administrators know the problem.  Unless you can get the broadcast audience to the website … nobody cares.  You cannot get the audience to the website without content.

It’s easy to point at others.  They need to provide more help, the PD doesn’t care, there isn’t enough time to keep the site fresh, it is too much work to post pictures, and videos … out-of-the-question.

If you are in charge of the station website here’s what you can do:

1. Keep the home page graphics fresh and current.   You must change the graphic at least once-per-week.   This is the minimum you should do.
2. Keep content up to date.  You know where to look.  On-air personality pages current?  Contest pages expired?  Contact information still real?
3. Delegate a page not the responsibility.  Got a sharp promotions person that wants to be more involved?  Invite them to help you.  Contest pages are easy to delegate.   Ask around and see who has a Facebook or MySpace page.  You will be surprised.
4. Invite the on-air people to email you new bio-information and a new picture.  Invite the new digital manager to send you weekly updates for the home page.
5. Add a few widgets to your web pages.  You’ll have dynamic, interesting, engaging content.  Don’t feel comfortable?  Talk to someone.  Call us.  We can help you.
6. CELLit Media provides easy to use video and picture tools.  There is no start up cost and no cost to operate.  These ad-funded (syndicated) program tools do the work for you.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, and eventually you will be tagged as the problem.

Back-to-school and Radio

Seriously good article in today’s Wall Street Journal – Stores Anxiously Watch Back-to-School Sales.   Click thru and read the article.  A few key perspectives:

• Inventories cut back with lower back-to-school sales expectations
• Retailers would rather chase more stock than discount if sales are weak
• Quick read to come from Florida and South Carolina with earlier back-to-school start dates
• If Back-to-school is weak then merchants will cut holiday inventory  … 2009 game over

Merchants are spreading out the “goods” to make shelves look full.  The mind set is run out rather than mark down.   No doubt, consumers will notice the lack of selection.  An unintended consequence might be even lower sales.

What’s this mean for local radio support?  At best, spot buy reductions with lower inventory and lower sales expectations.   Doing the same thing gets less.  It is time to reach deeper to stay even or think about recovering from this year’s first 6-months.

Couple of ideas:

• Bring back radio’s strong suit … contests.  Radio engages listeners like no other medium.  Turn on that special reach.   You can make the phones ring.  Now, make the register’s ring.
• Make the new contests about today, this weekend, and 72-hours.  The world isn’t waiting for 3-week events.  That’s so 90’s.  Do a blow out weekend.   Feature a special value … extraordinary event for 72-hours.  Concentrate the spot buy and flush out that sparse inventory.  Then it will be time to replenish the goods and the next spot buy.  Holiday outlook will be much brigher.
• Selling is now a team sport.  Two spots a day isn’t going to make a difference.  You need to program a support package.  Sell the concentrated package of spots on all day-parts, it will take on air mentions, web site banners, and page text for search engines.   Now, that contest … 72-hours and blow them away.
• Make the contests about back-to-school.  You might even think about individual winners from different schools to engage the entire audience.

Interactive Media is a Team Sport

Worth a read … local media using social web tools to grow their audience.  Article link here. Good reporting by the Boston Globe with specific examples of audience building programs.

For radio stations … here’s our take. Interactive media is a team sport. Web administrators and Program Directors need to realize they cannot do it all.  Like the stations mentioned in the article, tear down the walls between the on-air talent and the audience.   Designate a station “Twitter Master”.   Tweet ahead the morning topic.  Ask your audience what they would like.  Engage the audience with video and pictures.  Have you seen their Facebook pages?  Now look at your employer’s website?  Get the picture … err … see the missing pictures?

Networking at Media Stations

Web administrators … invite responsible station employees to tweet, video, text, and send pictures.  This dynamic content will amp your web traffic.  You will find the “team” support is powerful.  Wait until you engage your broadcast audience.  You’ll be a star, your audience will grow, and good things ahead.

Program Directors … build a team or die.  Either you find a way to expand your reach, build meaningful local content, engage the local audience, OR YOU WILL BE CONSOLIDATED.  Your job can be outsourced.  Imagine one-day a single PD for your format.   Likely you are already doing multiple stations.

PD careers get more important, more engaging, and grow.  Or, PD careers get consolidate.  What would you like?

We can get you started.  CELLit media works.   No startup expenses and no operating expenses.  Now what’s your excuse?  We’ll even help you with your other social connections.

Radio Website Tools … dynamic content with easier admin

Radio website administrators, here is an easy step to add dynamic content, get a traffic boost, and some nice recognition.

Just so we are all thinking alike.  You are managing 3 to 5 websites.  You do the newsletter(s).  You traffic the station email.  You create the web banners and post event pictures.  Your phone only rings when someone wants something … usually the requests are for immediate attention.  Every digital problem at the station is yours.  Then all your work is referenced with we don’t have a very good website or why don’t we have more web traffic?

Working with CELLit Media you have three very useful tools:

1.  Dynamic Widgets – You can create widget code for use on any webpage that automatically updates and displays thumbnail images and links to your audience generated media.  These updating banners have in most cases doubled web traffic.  It’s all about fresh content and CELLit dynamic widget banners display your choice of most recent, most popular, or highest rated content.

2.  Video Players – You can bring video to your home page with the CELLit Media Multi-player.  Select the videos you would like to feature.  Embed the code.  Watch your web traffic and visitor time-spent-online grow.

Dynamic Widget

Dynamic Widgets – Size Selectable / Content Selectable

On page video player

3.   Automated Contest Reporting – Contests are a lot of work.  Post this, edit that, process the email votes, and keep up with your regular projects.   The new CELLit Media Contest Admin Tools allow you to run contests with ease:

1. Picture or video entries
2. PC posting, email posting, or direct from your cell phone … we’ll do all the processing
3. Full moderation tools for postings, comments, tags, and flags for all else
4. Select the contest opening date/time, when voting begins, and when voting closes
5. Select the voting policy … once/contest, once/day, once/day/contestant
6. Save and run the contest.  We’ll tabulate the votes, views, ratings, and provide a complete report with contestant contact information

Running radio-station websites is a lot of work.  CELLit Media tools are designed to make you site dynamic, engaging, and easier to manage.  We can help.

Radio, Websites, and Video

Rumors about the next iPhone show front and back facing cameras plus easy video sending applications.   If you are the web admin for a radio station website(s) then this has to be the kick to get video.

Radio admins are always looking for dynamic content.  Your audience has the dynamic – video – power.  You just need to join them.  Or, let them join you.

Here’s a nice look at the possible new iPhone features.  Don’t spend to long looking … call CELLit and get started.  Your audience is already there.

Video Sending with the new iPhone

New Online Radio Contest Admin Tools

Take the hassle out managing website contests.  New CELLit contest tools make video pages powerful contest tools with audience generated media and sponsor messages.

The new CELLit contest features include:

• CELLit Radio Contest Administration   (click on link for full PDF documentation)
• Programmable start and stop dates/time
• Automatic Reporting
• Special Page Display, text, and graphics
• Create your own contest Channel
• Select the voting rules

Increase interactivity with CELLit Audience Participation Tools:

• Voting
• Commenting
• Sharing
• Tag
• Flag
• Email-a-friend

Take a look at the attachment.

Easily start an audience contest.  Something very simple … best Dad for Father’s day, summer swimsuits, any pet contest, any baby picture contest, my office … whatever.  A contest will increase your website traffic immediately and give your sales team a new and exciting sponsorship opportunity.  Contest packages can include title rights for the video/picture contest, banner, spot buy, and posting the sponsor’s videos online.

Want help getting started with the new contest tools?  Call or email us.

A few changes before Digital Revenue growth

New headlines from Radio Advertising Bureau about first quarter’09.

Total radio revenue down -24% to $3.4 billion while small but growing digital online revenue at radio stations is up 13% to $101 million.  Let’s be real.  That’s about 3% of the total.  Nice percentage growth but $12-million increase did not help when the total is off $1-billion (give or take a few million).

RAB leaders make a big deal out of radio digital platform growth, radio’s appeal to on-demand behaviors, and “primed for it”.  Maybe they are just a little … full of it.

Digital revenue can become an important business but a few changes are necessary:

1. PD Support is Vital. If you program director doesn’t care about digital then it will never work for you. If you PD thinks time-spent-online is time-spent-off air then your digital effort will fail. The audience has it figured out. Broadcasting is important at the right time. Online is important at the right time. Let the consumer choose their right time. Attempt to force them either way and you lose.
2. On Air + Online or O2 exponentially multiplies your reach. Use Twitter for instant feedback. Call out special video and picture support on the web. Follow up each broadcast with a short web cast, video diary, or what-you-didn’t-hear video or podcast. Your audience wants anytime-anyplace access. Let them have it.
   
3. Website administration is a team sport. Add widgets to show off your Twitter stream. Add video widgets with your latest and greatest events. Add Flash picture support. Connect to your FaceBook and MySpace pages. Let your promotion team add to the flow because they know what’s going on.
   
4. Trust your team and you will soar. It’s difficult but they get it. They know how to make online work better. After 10-years your website now contributes 3% to the total revenue flow. Maybe it’s time to let the team have a try.
   
5. Don’t hire a digital consultant. This is not about a website redesign. This is not changing your web hosting. This is about letting your team be creative. Let them show you how to make online work. You might be surprised that some team members have more personal Facebook traffic than your entire radio station website.

When you are ready to fly … point the team to CELLit Media. They will get it right away. Then stand back and listen, watch and learn how to really grow your digital business.

Digital Radio Revenue

Looking for more digital traffic, time-spent-online, and page views?   Look to your audience.  Tracking of the top-100 radio stations indicates less than 8% of their broadcast audience visits the station’s website while 50-70% of the audience is online.  That’s 1 of every 10 listeners … listeners that go online every day.  Nobody talks about the station website numbers but everybody knows.  It’s no secret.  Ask the sales team for more digital revenue and they ask for “better numbers to sell”. 

Dynamic content will bring your radio website traffic, the sales attention, and increase your digital revenue.

How do you get dynamic content?  Your audience and CELLit Media

CELLit Media provides the video and picture tools to engage your audience.   Videos and pictures are easily posted to pages with your station’s logo, colors, and display text.  You create your own channels; select how media is displayed; and fully moderate videos, pictures, comments, and tags.  CELLit provides these tools for shared advertising space.  No cash expense.  No operating expense.  Just opportunity!

About CELLit Media and dynamic content:

• You can add dynamic banners to your main website that update to the most recent postings, the most popular or the highest rated items of the moment 
• You can add a video player to your pages and display the videos of your choice for immediate viewing
• You can manage media based contests with start/stop times, special instructions, graphics, and system generated reports to judge the winners.

How do you get started?  First, recruit a digitally inclined on-air talent to post “their video and picture stuff”.   We promise the on-air talent doesn’t need much encouragement to get started.  DJ’s using CELLit Media dynamic widgets and video players will immediately boost your web traffic.  Second, start an audience contest.  Something very simple … best Dad for Father’s day, summer swimsuits, any pet contest, any baby picture contest, my office cubical … whatever.  You will increase your traffic again.  You will be a real hero.

For more visit www.CELLit.com.

Radio station website traffic builder

CELLit Media hosted video pages are powerful tools for audience generated media, station generated media, and sponsor messages.  Using the new CELLit MultiPlayer and the Dynamic Widget Banners will immediately increase your web traffic.  We’ve seen some stations double their traffic in 30-days and double their audience time-spent-online.
 
Look at the attachment and see how our new tools can benefit your site.
 
Want help getting started with the new tools?  Call or email us.  We are here to help build-traffic-with-dynamic-content.

RADIO NEWS WEBSITE TRAFFIC up 44% in February

February, 2009, online radio news site traffic was up  44% over last year.  The top 10 radio news sites we summarize from www.compete.com public information had 253,009 unique site visitors, making an average of 3.8 visits/month, clicking 4-pages each visit, and spending 3:12 on average time online. 

A link to the full summary is avaiable at the end of this post and includes www.Radio-info.com www.RadioandRecords.com www.allaccess.com  www.rbr.com www.radioink.com www.RAB.com  www.hear2.com www.Kurthanson.com (RAIN) www.insideradio.com and www.NAB.com

Radio teams know the web brings the fastest, most relevant, and well presented news about the radio industry. 

It’s interesting the most active sites have the most interactive tools.  Message boards, research, multi-media, and tagging/commenting/sharing social tools are found in the leader’s websites.

www.Radio-info.com and www.radioandrecords.com account for 70% of the top-10 time spent online.  Read the details in the free PDF.  No registration required.

Radio teams would do well to look at their own station websites and incorporate interactive/multimedia  tools they appreciate when they read their industry news.  

 

Radio News Website Share of Time Online Feb 2009

FREE PDF DOCUMENT: radio-news-sites-february-2009