(SALES) Win, Place, or Show?

4-17-2013
Win, place, or show?does it really matter?

You?ve probably seen shady characters in the movies or at the track who hot "tips" to help race enthusiasts bet on the winning horse.

Advertisers eager to see their website win the race against competitors? websites  can be the victim of similar tipsters, calling themselves S.E.O (Search Engine Optimization) consultants. Many of these "consultants" are flying below your radar, taking bigger chunks of marketing budgets than you might imagine. 

These S.E.O. consultants promise to make advertisers' websites win the race to the top of a search engine page with keywords, and various other tactics and tools. But just like those "hot tips" at the track, there are real problems inherent in their tips and tactics.

1.) The same search engine optimization "expert" who sells your client a "hot tip," is selling that tip to their competitors too?and there is only one top slot.

2.) Other search engine optimization "consultants" are selling different hot tips to get their clients, your clients' competitors, to win that same race.

3.) Still other competitors are literally trying to buy their way to the top of the search engine page.

4.) The tactics to win the race to the top change daily and there are more in the race than can fit on one search engine page.

The bad news is, the race to the top of a search engine page is never ending, and  impossible to win consistently as competitors enter the race to find new avenues to take them to the top.

The good news is, websites don?t need to win the race to the top, they only need to place or show to be effective.
Could it be true? Is S.E.O. over-hyped? Let?s examine why "winning" the S.E.O. race isn?t necessary.

Consider your own search habits. It?s highly likely that when you go online in search of a business, you are more likely to bypass the business at the top of the list if you?ve never heard of it, in favour of a business you noticed a little deeper in the list that you had heard of.

In an ENS Media survey of 2,640 Internet users in 12 markets, less than 6 percent of Web surfers clicked exclusively on the first business their search reveals at the top of the list. Nearly 80 percent (79.6 percent) preferred to click on a business they had heard of or are familiar with. And radio certainly can make a business "heard of."

There are several reasons for more familiar businesses being preferred.

1.) The number one search engine is Google. You?ve probably noticed that the first few names at the top of a Google search have a light-pink shading behind them, and you probably know why?.it?s because they are not there through organic search, they are paid ads. You know that, and so do consumers. They prefer to visit the organic search results.

2.) People prefer to do business with businesses they trust, and they seldom trust a business they?ve never heard of.
The real "inside tip" to getting results and higher returns from websites is to create a pre-need awareness, preference, and trust for a business before  prospects begin their online search.

If you own a business called Bob?s Tire Store, for example, do you really want victims of flat tires to search "tire stores" to reveal a list of all of your competitors, or would you prefer they search for Bob?s Tire Store?

Of course, you?d rather they search for your business, negating the need for S.E.O.

Creating pre-need awareness, preference, and trust really gives you a two-fold advantage online:

1.) Many prospects will search for you specifically, rather than viewing a list of your competitors, and

2.) If they do a generic search, having built awareness and trust in advance of their search increases the odds of them choosing to click on your link, rather than your competitors?.

Websites can be a powerful marketing tool in any advertiser?s tool chest if they are part of a greater marketing mix that gives the advertiser top-of-mind awareness before their prospects begin their online searches.

Wayne Ens is president of ENS Media Inc, www.wensmedia.com  producer of the SoundADvice radio e-marketing system and the Winning in the New Media Economy revenue development system. He can be reached at wayne@wensmedia.com

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Greater Media. It's A great Place To Work.

3-19-2013

Greater Media has been named one of the Top Workplaces in Philadelphia for the second year in a row in a survey conducted by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com. Market Manager John Fullam said, ?Great companies start with great employees. We believe the workplace environment is an essential part of creating a successful organization. We are fortunate to have such an outstanding team dedicated to serving Philadelphia, our listeners, and advertising partners every day.?

Greater Media owns and operates four radio stations in Philadelphia, including WMMR, WMGK-FM, WBEN-FM, and WPEN-FM. These stations collectively entertain over two million listeners each week.

The evaluation for the ?Top Workplaces? program was based entirely upon employee feedback from an employee survey conducted by Workplace Dynamics. The list of top workplaces was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and on Philly.com. While hundreds of companies participated in the survey process, in the end, only a select group of companies were awarded ?Top Workplace.?

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Vegas is The Place To Be This Week.

4-16-2012

The 2012 National Association of Broadcasters convention begins today in Las Vegas. Vendors spent the day setting up their booths and early attendees could be seen networking at many of the hotels around Sin City. Today, the convention will be kicked off by Gordon Smith who will deliver his "State of The Industry" address at 9AM. At 10:30 Media Monitors will hold a Press Conference where Phillippe Generali will debut a new Local Internet monitoring service. And, at 12PM. the much anticipated press conference being held by iBiquity, Intel, the NAB and Emmis Interactive to unveil the HD cell phone chip broadcasters are hoping will help get the FM chip in all cell phones. This convention brings in over 100,000 attendees from all over the world and includes Radio, TV and New Media.

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(CONVERGENCE) Radio's Place in The Cloud

2-14-2012

The hot technology buzzword in computing today is the ?cloud.? You see this used all over the place from consumer services like Apple?s new iCloud? or Pandora to business services from companies such as Oracle or IBM but what does this mean to radio? What is the cloud? Does radio have a place in the cloud? Does radio care and if so, why?

Let?s start with what ?the cloud? is. Simply put, having something in the cloud just means that where you used to operate your own servers (either on your site or more likely in a data center) that performed all of your digital services (ad management, trafficking, automation, hosting, streaming, etc.), you can now run your digital services on computers that someone else manages and maintains.  Furthermore, cloud companies? offer a host of important but low-level services that you don?t have to think much about anymore including fault-tolerance so your services are always ?on?, ability to add new capacity automatically, disaster recovery, and more.  This means cloud computing can dramatically lower your costs and will certainly lower the cost of launching new services and maintaining them.

All of this is now possible because the cost of the internet has fallen dramatically and consistently, and software has gotten much more sophisticated which means it is actually easier to use across a network and it is now being designed from the outset to work this way. In fact, this is how we?ve designed our new digital trafficking system, Clarity? to work. It is ?in? your radio station but really the guts of it reside in massive, secure, and redundant data centers.

The fact that these programs and services reside somewhere else is good for radio not only for the above mentioned reasons but it is also good for your vendors that have Cloud offerings too. That?s because we don?t have to spend our time and ultimately your precious dollars maintaining a bunch of computers and networks. We can now spend our time doing what we do best- writing programs that make your life easier and make your station more profitable.

There are other benefits to the Cloud, particularly if you are operating a cluster. Instead of each station working independently or someone schlepping files or sending tons of emails back and forth, the stations can be virtually connected and all information that you want to share, things like inventory levels, forecasts, campaign performance etc. can be aggregated and is available to anyone you choose. Further, this is now available across multiple devices, not just PC?s, so you can log in from an iPad and have real time campaign performance information and in addition to the ?cool? factor, it is just plain better for your business.

There have been questions about security regarding the migration of your systems to the cloud. I think this is more of a perception issue of no longer seeing lots of computer boxes and knowing that your data is somewhere else. To be clear, there?s nothing inherently less secure about a cloud offering. In fact, it could be argued that in fact it is more secure because the data and computers are only managed by the best of the best IT professionals, people who have many, many companies data entrusted to them. In November 2011 Amazon reported that they had over 20K Cloud Front customers and their Cloud business is roughly doubling YoY.  

If you are a GM or an owner and you would like to move to the cloud, there are several things you can do quickly and easily.  An obvious choice is to move your Microsoft Office components from an on ?premise solution to their hosted option.  This means that Microsoft will manage your entire Exchange system, reducing your hardware needs and IT overhead.  There are also a number of hosted IP based phone systems that eliminate the need for costly, complicated hardware and provide great features, usually at a lower cost than you can do it yourself.  And, of course, you can move your online ad management system to the cloud.

In summary, what the Cloud means to radio is that it has never been easier or more cost effective to launch new services, particularly digital services. As the importance of these digital services grows, the cloud is enabling radio to invest at a lower cost and generate a highr ROI faster than ever before. In short- the cloud is enabling radio to compete and win. 

Rob Green is the CEO of Abacast. He can be reached at robgreen@abacast.com
Visit Abacast at www.abacast.com

(2/14/2012 2:05:40 AM)
yeah they are improving day by day. thanks for the article

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"Major Directional Change" Taking Place at Merlin in Chicago

Apparently a format specifically designed to talk directly to a female listener isn't working out the way Merlin had planned. On the heels of radio veteran Dave Williams' surprise firing by Merlin in Chicago a source inside the station has confirmed that the station is making "major directional changes." The source also says there will not be any more layoffs and in fact the station is hiring again. "What we went on the air with looked good on paper. But then once it went on the air it was apparent we had to change the focus from narrowcasting to broadcasting. Some of the features weren?t working and we went with a harder news approach, but still with a more modern execution and feel," the source also told us.

In the October 24th print issue of Radio Ink magazine, Merlin COO Walter Sabo described why the format he helped put on the air was different. "All day, you take the news of your life and you share it with your spouse, parents, friend, co-workers, etc. The way you share it is different. Let?s say you got a promotion. You would tell it differently to each of them. You might feign modesty when talking to your neighbor. You might simplify it when talking to a 5-year-old niece. You might brag a little when telling your dad. It?s the same fact, but you present the information to the audience you are talking to a little differently. You communicate in words, terms, symbols that are meaningful to your audience. The traditional all-news stations are great stations. They are brilliant at reaching the retirement set. You look at the demography of those stations, and they aggressively appeal to people over 65."

When the station originally went on the air it was quickly criticized by Chicago media, some saying it was unlistenable. The station source told Radio Ink, "we?ve done a lot of things to actually add muscle to our coverage. It didn?t help that we had the world?s worst computer system in the buildings. You can?t imagine the problems that caused. No way to describe. That?s now changing. It?s too bad our staff was blamed for poor execution when newscasts were locking up, disappearing, etc."

Sabo is quoted in the magazine saying what Merlin was putting on the air was "not really a new way. It?s the way people have spoken all of their lives. When you are late to meet your friends because of traffic, you?re not going to say, ?There was a four-mile backup due to a disabled vehicle with police activity on the side of the road.? We are going to say, ?Some idiot ran out of gas,? or, ?The police are doing radar, stay away from there.? Because that?s how you would tell your friends."

Sounds like Merlin is leaning more toward saying things the old way. More toward the CBS way.

(10/12/2011 5:42:01 AM)
Well! What do you know? The only reason this group has ever gotten so much publicity is because of your affinity for them, not because they were newsworthy. Now we find this small company, yes it is small, is also fallible. Thanks for giving them an inordinate amount of publicity. Now let's get back to the rest of the broadcasting community.
(10/11/2011 11:56:16 AM)
Please be quick.

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Zimmer Employees Still Homeless. There's No Place to Go.

We spoke to Zimmer Radio Group Chad Elliot last night whow gave us an update on how the Zimmer family is doing. President Obma visited Joplin Sunday to give the residents in that tiny community some hope that the feds will be around to help for years. The sign you are looking at in this picture is actually Joplin High School, which was totally destroyed by the twister. The kids carved the "H" and "E" into the sign. The school parking lot actually hosted a Memorial Day service yesterday. Elliot tells us he is living with his wife's grandmother. "We're thankful to have a place to live." Elliot also says 7 other Zimmer families are still looking for a place to stay. Part of the problem is that available properties are limited.

The Associated Press is reporting that FEMA is considering bringing in trailers much like New Orleans after Hurricance Katrina if enough homes are not available. FEMA's first option for housing the thousands of displaced is to find them existing rental housing within a 55-mile radius of Joplin, because isn't much housing left in in the city of nearly 50,000 residents that was left badly damaged by the May 22 tornado, spokeswoman Susie Stonner told The Associated Press. Nearly a third of the city was damaged by the violent storm.

Stonner told the AP that despite the distance, putting people in permanent housing is preferable to trailers ? especially in an area prone to tornadoes and severe weather. "Wouldn't you prefer to be in a stable building over a mobile home?" she asked. Stonner also noted that getting things like water, sewer lines and developing pads for trailers would take substantial time. Temporary housing will be made available for up to 18 months. Some people along the Gulf Coast still live in FEMA trailers nearly six years after Hurricane Katrina.

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