Not the Only Game in Town

Radio contests can be powerful events, sponsor building programs, and listener delights.  However, some recent radio events are not drawing the entries they used to draw.

Radio contests are not the only game in town anymore.  Search the web and you can find Mr. Sweepy®  tracking 803 active sweepstakes with prize pools totaling $53-million!  He rates and ranks the current events drawing 600,000 monthly visits to his tracking website.  You can find Honeywell Consumer Products $65k prize pool; Nat’l Frozen Foods Assoc $100k prize pool, Dream Bedroom from Lifetime Entertainment $20k; Hilton Grand Vacations new Mini Cooper prize; Toyota Hybrid Drive Sweepstake; Sharpie Office Depot Back Pack Contest; Rite Aid; TNT-TV; Sega; Hasbro; ESPN; L’oreal; and 792 more contests.

Radio is not the only constest game in town anymore

Search Google for “Radio Contest” and find 121,000 possibilities.

Now about your current contest … what’s your prize?  Do you have an easy entry process?  Are you still asking for mail ins?   Is the contest mentioned in the sponsor’s spots?  Any on air mentions? Do you have the contest on your website?   Is the contest in your newsletter?  Facebook page?  Twitter stream? Is the contest inviting, current, immediate, and engaging?  Or, do you have a 4-week event with little consumer engagement?  Hopefully, you are not running black box contest … entries in and winners announced 4-weeks later?

With CELLit Media tools you can have an engaging, active, sponsor-delightful contest.  We provide web tools to accept digital picture entries and videos.  Your audience can enter by the web, by email or directly from their cell phone.  You set the contest policies allowing your audience to help select the winners with voting options per day, per contest, per contestant.  You moderate the contest with easy review tools.   CELLit social tools allow commenting, rating, voting, tagging, and email-a-friend.  We even summarize the contest and automatically report all the results to you just minutes after the ending date/time.

Is it time to become “the” game in town?  CELLit Media

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.