With any business, you want to exceed the milestones you set last year and years prior. Your online marketing and content strategy should always be evolving as well. The online world offers unlimited ways to meet your audience wherever they are. Once you operate a successful and profitable radio station website, it’s time to start expanding your online efforts. Here are some tips to guide you.
Grow Social
Hopefully you’ve been sharing your station website content and growing your listener community with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Because these platforms are constantly evolving, they are here to stay. Make it a point to promote each post or campaign on your social channels. For major promotions, it’s worth purchasing an upgrade to promote your content to more followers or even to locals that are not following you. And it’s important to check the data on these platforms to see how well you are doing. Keep pushing towards things that work and pull back on things that don’t work with your audience.
Use Surveys and Polls in Your Content Strategy
Surveys provide a quick and easy way to learn more about your audience. Take advantage of these to improve your marketing strategy. Post a quick survey on your station website to ask listeners about their favorite local shops and restaurants and compile the list of new target sponsors. Poll your audience to learn what prizes and experiences interest them the most. Use that data to plan your monthly promotions. The sky is the limit on the amount of data you can get from your listeners with just a simple (quick) survey. Don’t think your listeners will fill one out? Offer an incentive or even list of incentives that appear only after the form has been filled out.
Use Media Outside of Radio
If local radio is to survive, the station must evolve into something more than a microphone and transmitter. With so many opportunities available online, the price is low and the rewards are high to expand what local radio has to offer. Here are some ways to think outside of radio:
- Podcasting continues to grow in popularity and it presents a powerful business opportunity. Have your jocks roll tape on their entire show and re-purpose it or the “best of” for on-demand consumption.
- Produced video consumption like Youtube continues to grow each year with no signs of slowing Make it a point to film all in-studio visits, on-location and backstage events and other local happenings that connect with your audience. Just be sure you have proper permissions in mind when filming others.
- Consider live video. Facebook gives preferential treatment to those who broadcast live by putting those posts first in the list of what followers see. So, if you have an event like I mentioned above, be sure to pull out your mobile device and “go live”. Doing this will expand your Facebook audience and keep your station prevalent on followers’ minds.
If you have an active and growing website for your radio station, you’ve taken the first and crucial step towards online success. Now, it’s time to start growing your content strategy.
Check out these recent articles with examples of stations adding digital to their arsenal and profiting from it.
DIGITAL KEEPS RADIO VERSATILE, PROFITABLE—AND IN TOUCH – Inside Radio
DIGITAL GIVES RADIO CHANCES TO BE SAVVY, STRATEGIC, SUCCESSFUL – Inside Radio
THE ROUNDTABLE: HOW HAS DIGITAL CHANGED THE GAME FOR RADIO? – Inside Radio
I hope these tips help you grow your station’s audience and online reach this year. If your station doesn’t have a successful website, you’re at the right place. Contact us to get started on your journey to online success.
