8-4-2014
In keeping with this issue?s focus on 40, here is a list of 40 power-packed digital ideas to help you increase both audience and revenue.
1. Post new, brand-relevant content on your site at least once per daypart.
2. Promote content on Facebook and Twitter at least once every other daypart, and always link your posts back to your site.
3. Use e-mail signatures that have links to your station site and stream.
4. Maximize your apps. If all your apps do is stream the station, you?re missing a huge opportunity to engage the audience and drive time spent listening.
5. Use images on your site. Sites using interesting images almost always have higher time spent than text-heavy sites.
6. Use Google Analytics or other metrics programs to identify the most popular content on your sites and apps, creating beachfront sales assets around the best landmarks.
7. Develop a plan for consistently driving broadcast audience to your digital platforms, and vice versa.
8. ?Gamify? the listening experience on your digital platforms by rewarding the audience for engagement with your station.
9. Reward the AE (cash is king) with the highest monthly digital-pitch activity that consistently creates integrated campaigns using mobile, social, and local broadcast assets.
10. To get the programming department?s (PDs and other personnel) commitment, as opposed to compliance, shift their bonus comp model to pay out based on one-third ratings, one-third digital, and one-third overall sales performance.
11. To ensure station-wide commitment to ratings and revenue, rewrite your station?s job descriptions in every department so they include clear digital expectations for everyone.
12. Give up the home-brewed ad serving and ad tracking on your digital platforms and use Google DFP for display.
13. If you are doing any form of ad insertion, consider a vendor with strong service and targeting capabilities, such as AdsWizz.
14. Use LinkedIn as a lead-generation tool to reach out to your contact list for referrals.
15. Use LinkedIn to start your own advertising channel as you sign up clients to receive your weekly marketing tips and ideas.
16. Use LinkedIn to endorse your clients. They will repay the favor, increasing your profile and connection base as you continue to build your authenticity and product authority.
17. Use LinkedIn as another channel to post your salesopening opportunities. You?ll be hitting a highly educated and motivated audience of contacts and relationship networks.
18. Join various LinkedIn groups (such as Radio Ink or a media professionals group, for example) and start answering marketing questions to further establish your credibility, creating possible leads in the process as others start to rely on you as a resource due to your expertise.
19. Use Twitter and Facebook to follow your clients and prospects so you can see their digital footprints ? for example, to see if you have anything in common that you can use as an ice-breaker during your first visit ? and what is important to them (based on who they follow).
20. Add ?share? buttons on each piece of content on your website (hopefully, you are already doing this) so that it is easy for users to spread your ideas, comments, and solutions to their audiences, expanding your reach and furthering your influence as a marketing expert.
21. When you close the deal, hand the client your new marketing card, listing your LinkedIn channel, and make them feel special by telling them you only give out this link to key clients.
22. Don?t forget the power of e-mail to serve as a communication medium to send clients industry tips and info, as those prospects are often further out in the buying cycle.
23. Use video (YouTube is free) as your new digital testimonial platform, as you use engaging and successful clients to sell the attributes of advertising with your station.
24. Use video on your website to explain your sales process and introduce your AE team to prospects.
25. Have each AE contribute to the monthly sales blog you are going to start as another resource for your customers to learn from you. If you have 10 AEs, you now have two pieces of fresh content each week.
26. Get the renewal by taking video and pictures of everything you do (events, sampling, product placement during the morning show, etc.) and place the video on a station-logo jump-drive to present to the client after the campaign is finished.
27. Always have a ?call to action? button on any contentrich page (?Sign up for the morning show newsletter!?) or sales section (?To reach the sales manager within one hour.....) to engage active listeners or clients.
28. Double- and triple-check your websites to ensure that all landing pages are working correctly, since gaining valuable information ? such as e-mail addresses ? is critical to your ratings and revenue success.
29. Think about your user experience on the site, and conduct a quick audit of your website load times, as users will bail within seconds if your site is cumbersome.
30. Set up a Google Alert to follow your clients and, most importantly, their competition so that you can relay information in a timely manner and stay on their radar with data that is useful and that may give them an edge toward maximizing sales potential.
31. ID the biggest digital media buyers in the market by analyzing who is spending on search. Consider using spyfu.com as a tool.
32. Plan ahead for seasonal digital promotions: Valentine?s Day, Presidents? Day, July 4, and Labor Day all happen at the same time every year and are all major retail days. So consider digital when you start your yearly sales strategy planning to help you drive retail traffic.
33. Polls are a highly engaging content piece on your websites or social media channels, so offer sponsorship opportunities for that daily morning show poll of the day. For example, ?Bob?s Cinema sponsoring the ?Best Summer Movies of All Time.??
34. Get your company involved as a recruiter in association with the NAB Media Sales Institute program and begin to source digital-savvy AEs who have participated in a very rigorous application and training process.
35. Look outside your comfort zone ? the competition, friends, and radio networks ? for young AE talent by exploring the Sales Education Foundation. The SEF lists the top colleges for sales education, where you can post openings. Also check out the University Sales Center Alliance.
36. Improve your digital knowledge and be inspired by following smarter leaders ? Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki, or Seth Godin are some of many ? who can turn you on to new ways to think outside of our broadcast industry.
37. The quickest way to get deleted is to not check your spelling and grammar before you communicate with any client, listener, or potential prospect.
38. Double-check the ?Sales? tab on your website to ensure you are connecting with prospects who hit your ?Call to Action? button. Your GSM should follow up with any inquiry the same day it is received ? period.
39. Make sure your programming and marketing teams go on actual sales calls to close business. Nothing beats sitting across from clients and hearing their pain firsthand.
40. Conduct a show-prep audit to ensure that each talent is using a completely new and fresh set of resources, since nothing is worse than recycling hour-old bits and data. One hour can mean huge changes to the narrative today.
Jon Erdahl is president of 3D MediaVentures.
Reach him at 603.234.4158 or follow on Twitter @JonErdahl.
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