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.

Top-10 Radio Industry News Sites Lead the Way

Here’s an interesting “eat your own dog food” example. 

The top-10 radio industry news websites are up … big!  Unique monthly visitors are up 68% over January’08, month-to-month growth is 19%, news-site visits approach 1-million, and time-spent-online includes 5.5 million page views averaging 53-seconds each.  Radio operators know for timely, valuable news that it’s online.  

Download the January Information Here

The most popular radio news sites have great content, valuable perspective, message boards, and multi-media tools.  The lowest traffic sites have fewer or no interactive tools generating less time-online and fewer page views.

Radio business people get radio news online and appreciate web tools.  Now, take a look at most radio station websites.  If one-million radio news readers “get it” then why are most station websites falling so far behind?

Take a look at the January’09 information.  Then look at your own radio website.  Start with a few new tools like CELLit. 

You are online.  Your audience is online.  It’s time for your station’s website to move up.

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Top 10 radio news traffic sites:  www.Radio-Info.com; www.radioandrecords.com; www.allaccess.com; www.radioink.com; www.rbr.com; www.rab.com; www.insideradio.com; www.kurthanson.com; www.hear2.com; www.nab.com.  Credit to http://www.Compete.com for this information. 

30% objective can lead to strong NTR performance

Non Traditional Revenues (NTR) can be a source of 2008 success.  How can you build the NTR business without major investments, new programs, and expensive graphics programs?  We suggest you look to the younger staff and help them apply their creativity.   Generally, one-in-three of your staff under 35 years old has a MySpace or FaceBook page.  Some might have more traffic to their social pages than your radio website.

We suggest you lead with an objective that 30% of your listening audience visit your website once a month. This may not seem like a large objective but it is way above the 5% of listeners we see visiting the average radio website.   Now, help your staff include information that attracts the listening audience.  The regular posting of contest information, special event schedules, concert lists, and program details will dramatically increase your web traffic.

You can help the team stay focused by asking for a daily report of site visitors and page views.  A simple report, everyday, will demonstrate your priority and help the team focus on the objective. 

Building site traffic is the sound basis for stronger advertising performance and business results.