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.

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.

Start by answering the phones …

January 22 – Most likely you read the widely published Stanford Groups ugly comments about radio … among the stocks panned is anything related to radio, with “sell” recommendations on Entercom Communications, Emmis Communications, Cox Radio and Cumulus Media. While 90% of Americans listen to radio, they are listening to less, and advertisers are retreating, says the report. “The combination of pressured cash flow and heavy debt burdens could render the equity value of many radio stocks worthless.” Here’s one link.

Structurally, a lot of radio groups are in trouble.  Wall Street seduced debt and declining audiences-revenues are a difficult mix.  Seems some radio leaders only know one quick fix … lighten the load … throw out the crew. 

One path forward will be thru the burning ashes.  The debt is so high and the revenue falling so fast it looks like a crash landing ahead.  However, new leaders will emerge.  They will find meaningful ways to serve local communities, engage listeners, and work better with retail merchants.   

Couple of quick steps you could start now:  1) answer the phones … listeners want to be acknowledged … even if it is just a voice mail, the no-answer ring outs really dismiss the audience; 2) engage listeners with IM/Chat/Twitter they are already there waiting for you; and 3) provide two-way website tools for commenting, linking, sharing, messaging, and picture/video posting.  Your broadcast signal, a local sales force, and a two-way website can be a community force.   No people?  Just ask, your crew is smart, already digital, and waiting for you to catch up.

Or, play Phoenix and maybe rise from the ashes.