Radio Still Using Traditional Salespeople For Digital Dollars

12-17-14

The jury is still out on whether this approach is right or wrong. Some will say the reason radio does not generate more revenue from digital is because it doesn't focus enough dedicated resources to it. Others will say there just isn't enough digital revenue in the marketplace to spend the money on those additional resources.

Radio Ink recently completed a detailed survey of managers that included owners, CEOs, corporate executives, market managers, general managers, sales managers, and program directors. Our goal was to take the pulse of the industry as we head into 2015 and find out where you believe radio sits in the digital marketplace. Our survey discovered that 86 percent of radio stations continue to sell digital products using their traditional sales force while only 14 percent have a dedicated digital sales staff. As a result, perhaps, 63 percent of our respondents report that digital revenue makes up less than 5 percent of their total sales. Another 21% say digital make up between 6 to 10 percent of sales.

Additional results from our survey show that radio managers report they are fairly confident (41%) or highly confident (35%) that they have a strong grasp of emerging digital opportunities and threats. When asked about the advertisers they call on, a majority (70%) say their advertisers are digitally savvy while half (50%) say their companies are digitally savvy.

(12/17/2014 2:01:08 PM)
Fifteen years ago our company Radio Profits Corporation presented at the Radio Ink Internet conference. At the time this same debate was going on whether digital needed a separate sales team. Probably the people who were debating it are no longer in the business.

This industry is sadly stuck.

(12/17/2014 1:01:19 PM)
Ed Ryan, You should go on the road and share your early experiences in selling digital dollars. If the industry wants its share of digital dollars they better train and hire people who specialize in digital.
(12/17/2014 11:20:18 AM)
When we started our digital marketing department four years ago, we had a separate sales staff to sell website development and other online marketing products. This fall we trained our radio sales reps to sell digital.
It has been a very difficult transition as many of the older salespeople have not been receptive to learning digital.
Integrating our clients' marketing is important, but it was much more effective when we had separate sales teams for each product.
(12/17/2014 10:57:17 AM)
Radio made an error giving digital to the regular sales staff. The salespeople were immediately sidetracked from their normal duties which hurt station billing, and poor initial digital pitches were made by inexperienced people causing few digital sales.
Newspapers always had separate sales people for their various products, (display, classified, inserts) But then, newspapers were always a real business.
(12/17/2014 9:43:30 AM)
Toy, how long did it take for FM to become profitable because AM stations gave away advertising to fill inventory on their FM sister stations? Giving something away demonstrates that it has no value.

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(SOCIAL) Using Social If You Were Local Radio!

5-17-2013

Radio, in some corners of our industry, seems to be confused about social media. However, radio is the original modern social media and you can prove this to yourself in only a few seconds. If you think it, radio has always connected local groups and brought communities together by helping local listeners and local advertisers. We haven?t just broadcast to local communities. We?ve done remotes, events, concerts, promotions, after-work parties, nightclub events, and much more. Facebook and Twitter are still the new kid on the block in this regard. However, they offer radio transformational tools that can help us extend what we do if we work smart and not just hard.

So, how do we move into social media as the originators of social media so that our influence actually grows in local radio markets? The same way we approach the building, launching, and growth of a local radio station. Here are five ways to use social media as if you were local radio:

1. Determine the audience you most want to attract. Focus on what is most important and actionable to these people.

2. Decide not to just broadcast messages (spam) to them; engage them with valuable content that helps them, validates them, includes their opinion, and allows them influence.

3. Have fun with this audience by engaging them with what is fun about your radio station, format, product content, and how it relates to them. This can be done easily with videos shot at concerts or backstage or inside radio station events or special promotions. Again, focus on the listener experience and what this important life-group wants and finds entertaining.

4. Trail them back to their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and even email if you can access it so you can validate them by compliment (on comments they have made on your website, Facebook page or comments, Twitter, et al). Then, develop relationship influence with them so that they feel they can influence your radio brand and what they hear.

5. Develop transformational relationship ties with the local listeners you find in social media that are most active and cheerlead for your media brands or others.

Now, go have fun out there with local listeners. Give ?em some love from local radio and care about their busy lives. Give them benefits for getting closer to you. You?ll look like a guru, but you and I will know you are just the same cool radio personality you were before Facebook thought they invented being social.

Good luck!

Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here:  http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE  Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE

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Hackers Send Out Zombie Alert Using EAS

2-13-2013

Several radio and Television stations had their EAS systems hacked into prompting the FCC to send out an urgent advisory. The fake alerts sent out by hackers spoke of Xombie attacks. The FCC advisory says, "All EAS Participants are required to take immediate action to secure their CAP EAS equipment, including resetting passwords, and ensuring CAP EAS equipment is secured behind properly configured firewalls and other defensive measures."

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(SOCIAL) Tips On Contesting Using Social Media

8-29-2012

In today?s busy broadcast world, people are often looking for the easy way out. A lot of radio?s efforts in social media fall flat because they try to use it for advertising or exclusively for contesting. You must ask yourself, ?Where is the value in our social media for the listener or the ?social media actives"?  This week we look at contesting and give a few guidelines for you to think about when it comes to social media and contesting for radio. You might be doing some or all of these or they may be new to you or inspire a new and more productive direction for your social media.

1. Tip number one?  Always (or almost always) focus on bringing social media actives back to your on-air or at least your website. If you are not doing this, you are focused on promoting Facebook, Twitter, or other channels you don?t own and that is WRONG. Dead wrong. Our business is one where higher listening, higher engagement, and higher advertising mean success. We don?t own Facebook and Twitter.

2. You simply must think about sharing FIRST when you are creating a promotional element for social media. You should be careful to insure your promotion does not look like spam, but sharing is essentially the most powerful dynamic in social media. To put this in proper perspective, you have to always think about all of your content in terms of why people will want to share it and how easy it is to share. Those should fall in the early order of your priorities. It simply cannot be said too much that content and creativity are critical when it comes to YOUR work (that?s what it is) on Facebook and Twitter.

3. As you may know, I do not recommend contesting to be the majority of your posts on a site like Facebook or on your Twitter account. Real engagement involves some depth and certainly some significant content value. That won?t come just from contesting. Your contesting should never be more than a very low percentage of your overall posts on any social media site. However, when you are engaging contesting, be consistent to follow up so that you have a consistent pattern of opportunity for listeners to engage your brand on-air. When you are contesting or highlighting contesting, you should plan content on at least both Facebook and Twitter along with your own database and any communication you utilize in groups.

4. Don?t forget to be a crafty community partner. When you are thinking about your community service or your commitment to the community, work in the planning stages to partner with the charities and organizations you help so that you have effective cross-promotion. Yes, you can do this with contesting. Be creative. Think about sharing. This may seem easy, but it all begins with choosing causes that are valuable to your listener target. If you do that, you will already be a winner. At the same time, gaining access to a commitment from them on their social media channels is critical (including frequency and content specifics). You can also form careful partnerships with bloggers and local writers to benefit all. Promotion is sometimes sweat equity and sometimes partnership. Use both so that you have a large ?face? that represents your image. Just be careful who you choose to partner with and make sure you are both singing out of the same choir book.

5. Visuals, visuals, visuals. I preach this all the time. It does not matter what your content is about, there is a picture you can use to lure more engagement. The research is all over the Internet:  People stop more often because of photos. The numbers are overwhelming.

In the end, you must understand the true value of social media. Social media is not an advertising tool (although you certainly can advertise on social media respectfully). Having a serious strategic plan for your social media is the most important thing you can do for yourself. Of the people who are unsure of the value of social media, most of that comes from a feeling that ?it?s free.?  Well, it is free if you don?t put the work in to make it successful. Nothing is free.

Still, social media engagement done with a plan that focuses on specific goals can be powerful for your radio station. As time goes by, you should be more engaged. Not less. If you don?t have a plan, stop what you are doing on social media platforms and develop a full plan and really map it out for your success. Then, determine who will execute the plan and make sure everyone understands the plan. This includes the contesting elements.
Once you have a plan, the percentage of time you spend contesting will actually become more valuable (as will all of your content on social media). You?ll be glad you mapped it out because you will see consistent results from your work and will know you are not just ?doing social media.? You?ll be ?doing your plan.? That makes you the winner.

Loyd Ford programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here: http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE
Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE

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(PODCAST) Salespeople. Still Using These For Leads?

Download this show

5-10-2012

Sales have been flat in radio. There's no denying that. We hear about pockets of strength, mostly in small and medium markets, but we've also seen the big guns report weak revenue numbers. The cuts continue, as companies continue to reduce expenses until the economy rebounds and the sales improve. For sure some of it is the economy. Could another part of it be salespeople not making enough calls or calling on the wrong businesses or hitting the street with a pocket pen and a rate card?

How many times have you returned to the office and announced to the sales team..."that's it everyone, time to go home, we've just been making too many sales calls today. In his earnings report to Wall Street the always colorful Ed Christian said he still believes there are businesses not being called on by radio salespeople and he's been around quite awhile. What we dicided to do in our latest podcast with Matt Sunshine from the Center for Sales Strategy is discuss lead generation.

There are a lot of things salespeople can do to market themselves as the best at what they do. It takes a lot of hard work, consistency and dedication to the job to be the person everyone in your market depends on when they are ready to advertise. That's the relationship salespeople should strive for and to do that, it takes a whole lot more than sitting at your desk dialing for apoointments. In our 30 minute interview Matt gives specific ideas that you can start implementing tomorrow to be a better salesperson. Some of them you may have heard of. The question is how many of them will you implement Monday morning.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST HERE
OR DOWNLOAD IT FROM OURITUNES PAGE ANY TIME
After listening to the Podcast go to THIS PAGE for more materials to help you succeed.
Contact Matt directly mattsunshine@csscenter.com

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5 Ways Your Station Should Be Using Video

by Loyd Ford

Even if you?ve been under a rock or two for the last couple of years, you know that a very large and mainstream audience in America is frequently using social media.  You?ve even likely seen the reports that one of the largest segments of growth on Facebook is 35 ? 54.  You might even think you are doing great if your radio station has a Facebook page and your station uses Twitter, but you are missing a lot of success and audience interaction if your radio station is not using video to get attention and share content (and have your content shared with others again and again). 

If you think making video is too difficult or too expensive, check out the Video Flip.  You can get one for under $100 (and probably less if you go to Craig?s List).  As long as I am talking about spending some money, should I mention that your team should be considering ways to incorporate video into your social media and make money from it?  Yes, you should.

Here are five tips to really make your video rock in social media environments:

1. Find the person or persons on your staff that you know are good at presentation.   You are probably thinking about this person while you read this.  Personable people can make the most engaging videos that listeners will love.   They can also be very helpful in creating your overall plan for social media and what you can accomplish using video.  Make sure they have some basic guidelines and know it is important to represent your station in social media and video the way the station is represented on air.  If you don?t have this person on staff, you need to be thinking about how you will get them.  

2. Make your videos personal.  Chances are if you have a job in radio, people think you have a fun job.  Let?s face it.  This isn?t accounting and your listeners think you are much more likely to meet the stars in your format and have fun opportunities they don?t have in their job.  Give them a personal view of that fun job that they will enjoy.  Let them into your life a little (as always, make sure you are representing the station in a way that reflects your company goals).

3. Give listeners content they want about the entertainers on your brand.  If you work for a country station, consider using video by interviewing an up and coming star when they come to town.  Don?t have access to that?  Create a country gossip minute produced with your logo directly behind you.  Think short content.  Make your videos a minute if possible, but no more than four.  No matter what format you are in, you can think of content that will excite your listeners.  Give it to them in short video form on social media.

4. Consider contests where you ask listeners to compete for backstage passes or some other substantial ?experience? prize.  Make it a rule that the video must involve stars in the format and a station logo, but make it fun.  Don?t make it only about the logo. Don?t make them the same contest every time.  The more fun and interesting you make these types of contests, the more listeners will share the video with others.  And you never know when something will go completely viral.  If it represents what is fun about your station and it goes viral, your boss will say, ?You?re brilliant!?

5. Put a call to action at the end of your video.  This can be as simple as simply saying, ?To get more on your favorite artists now, go to?.? and give them the dot com of your radio station.  Remember: We always want to lead them back to us because we are broadcasters first.
You should always be looking to include listeners in your videos.  This can be done at a concert or station event or when prize winners come and pick up a cool prize.  This is showcasing why it is cool to be involved with your radio station.   
A little effort can bring great results with video.  With just a person or two on your staff you can make great videos and create new levels of success for your brand. 

Reach out to Loyd via email HERE
Visit the free Social Media Group for RADIO here

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Using Images in Posts: Wow My Eyes

July 14, 2011

by Mike Stiles

For years we?ve comforted ourselves in the knowledge that we deal in sound, so we don?t have to worry about imagery or putting out anything attractive to eyeballs.  As long as your logo looked cool on your t-shirts, you were golden. Now, since we?re running station Facebook pages, we have to put some thought into drawing people in with pictures.  Our findings at Vitrue show a post with an image attached gets 2.4 times the engagement rate as a post with no media attached to it.  Of course, posts with video get 1.15 times as much engagement as posts with images do, but for now, let?s talk about still images since they?re easier to get and use.

Think about that number.  2.4 times more engagement.  That?s over twice.  If you?re self-aware at all, you?ve noticed that when you?re scrolling down your Facebook wall in a rush, you?re only slowing down at posts that have pictures.  If the picture is semi-intriguing, you?ll enlarge it to see what?s up.  You?re not alone. So pay attention to whether your posts have pictures, and pay attention to how interesting those pictures are.  Cool as your logo may be, just using that as the image beside all your posts is better than nothing, but it ain?t gonna get clicked.  Here?s what your listeners probably want to see:

? Jocks with celebrities.  Doesn?t even matter if the pics aren?t recent.  Reach into those personal archives.
? Any picture that made you LOL when you saw it.  If you think it?s funny, jaded entertainment professional that you are, your audience will love it.
? Any picture with a hot chick in it.
? Any picture with a hot guy in it.
? Any picture with a cute animal in it.
? Pictures of anything outrageous that happened at a remote or event.
? The cover of a new CD by one of the artists you play.
? A pic related to a hot topic you talked about on the air, preferably a local story.

It?s not like it?s inconvenient to carry a camera around with you anymore.  It?s right there on your phone.  Snap away and choose the cream of the crop to post.  Just don?t post photos that suck; meaning those that are badly lit, out of focus, can?t tell what?s going on, etc.  You should also establish a standard photo size and resolution so everything is visually consistent.

More tips?  Sure?why not? 

? Images don?t just mean photos.  Do a cartoon or make an infographic, even if you do it in crayon and scan it. 
? Don?t neglect to put something in that comment section to the right of your photo?something that makes sense and compels people to click the image. 
? Don?t forget to tweet your good photos.  There are numerous Twitter image-sharing services out there to use for that.
? That photo strip across the top of your Facebook can be made really cool if you want it to be.  Here?s a link to get you going: http://www.makeitinmusic.com/facebook-photo-strip/

We?ve all endured the ?face for radio? jokes, but now is the time to start thinking about what your listeners want to see as well as what they want to hear.

Mike Stiles @mikestiles is a writer/producer with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue, and head of Sketchworks comedy theatre. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files.

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How to Sell a Facebook Sponsorship Using YouTube.

by Radio Ink Blogger Carl Magnusun.

Social media is meaningless if you have nothing meaningful to give your listeners. Give them excitement, give them unique content, give them characters, give them what they?ve come to rely on your station for and not only will your social media strategy click into place much easier but pretty soon you?ll be generating revenue. Rodney Whitaker is the Interactive Sales Manager at Maverick Media in Santa Rosa, California. Whitaker describes how a simple idea turned into a sponsorship using social media.

?We came upon the idea for River Rarities purely by a real life experience. Mike Waterman, the River program director, and I had been sending YouTube videos to each other of live performances of our favorite classic rock artists. Then it hit us. If we enjoyed seeing these videos maybe our listeners would too and River Rarities was born.?

Whitaker describes how his idea was put into action. ?At 9AM each weekday Lauren Marks announces the River Rarities song of the day and invites listeners to view the video on the stations Facebook page. Listeners view and comment and engage with the station and each other via that wall post. There?s the typical comments about how they miss being able to have hair like that (some of them just miss having hair), they tell stories about when they saw the band live, they suggest other vintage concert footage for us to feature, and so on. Then we have a special sponsor branded webpage with the River Rarities archives where listeners can see all of the past videos we?ve featured. Listeners love it!?

This is all sponsored by a local live music venue and Whitaker says the advertiser loves it. "They just renewed for another 6 months. It?s become a center piece of their advertising with the station and allowed us to leverage more revenue and strengthen our relationship with the client. But equally, if not more important, we?re creating more value for listeners and more opportunity for engagement. And we?re doing it with social media which doesn?t cost the station anything.?

Whitaker advises other broadcasters to "get after it" when it comes to leveraging social media to create revenue opportunities. ?Years ago when we first started streaming a client asked me, ?Are listeners changing their habits because of where and how you are delivering content?? Actually the opposite is true and to an even greater extent today? we are changing what we are doing because of where and how consumers are consuming media.  If ?Radio? is defined as the box in the corner or the thing in your car with a dial, we?ll go the way of the dinosaur. If we evolve? we can win. Listeners are using social media so whether you make money with it or not you better be there. If you?re there why not be creative and find ways to engage your listeners and make money doing it? Some broadcasters are uncomfortable with Facebook because they see it as competitive rather than complimentary to their broadcast and online properties. To them and everyone else reading this I shout:
?DON?T WORRY ABOUT COMPETING! DO WHAT YOU DO BEST AND THERE IS NO COMPETITION!!!?

Whitaker says broadcasters should use the most intimate mass medium wisely. "Radio now has the tools to reach out to virtually every single listener and make their pocket vibrate?yet we struggle. We struggle because we?ve lost our mojo?and that lack of excitement and sizzle and relevance comes through in boring and stale voice tracks, websites and social media posts. You are in the business of making great audio content and serving your community with the music, news and entertainment they need/like/want?wherever they are (on-air, online, mobile, social). So do that more. Do it better."

Whitaker can be reached via e-mail at rodneywhitaker@maverick-media.ws

Carl Magnuson is a blogger for Radioink.com and Co-Creator and Director of Sales, Social Radio LLC. He can be reached via e-mail at thevoiceofcarl@gmail.com

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