Happy Friday, everyone!
This week's poll question comes from Andy McNabb of St. Catharines, ON:
What specifically are you doing -- and saying to advertisers -- to generate more revenue to combat ever-increasing dollars going to digital competition?
Looking forward to reading your replies! (And thanks for the question, Andy!)
It's hard, if not impossible, to encourage national chains to put more money into radio, even if you are included in their sphere of influence. And to discourage more digital spending can decrease your own credibility. Every business should be putting some money into a digital presence, at minimum. It is imperative in today's marketplace. Our focus should be on getting the word out about a business's webpage, twitter account, Facebook page, etc. You can have the best website in the world, but you need to tell folks about it and that's where we can shine. Another avenue is to work with the brick and mortar businesses that don't really sell online. While social media is great, it doesn't get a broad spectrum of people in the door as well as radio. Facebook posts may get your friends in the door, but radio can drive a vast array of customers into your business. The right campaign coupled with a great commercial will have folks knocking your door down (or at least knocking on it). Web presence is here to stay, but for storefront businesses, radio can and will outshine it.
i think it's a bit difficult to let online campaigns to shine on their own - they need a driving force behind them and that's where radio can come in...my strength is in radio so online (in this case, our radio's social networking sites and website) what I mostly do is give it as value add to my client
Why would we combat dollars going to digital? The world IS digital. The challenge instead should be defeating the notion that digital and radio exist in an either/or relationship. Radio is one of digital's best friends. There's no medium better suited to exciting a prospect and driving web traffic. Radio is still the original social medium. And radio dollars can be much more effective in generating ROI than PPC. Because, unlike PPC, a radio commercial can actually make friends and influence people. At the end of the day, it's still a human voice being welcomed into the space and reaching another human being. No digital ad can ever have that kind of power.
Andy:
By the time it happens it is too late. It needs to start early. The question is noit if they should be doing on line, the question is of "cost per click" and Reach.
On cost per click: When you see an ad on a page you have the option to click it. When you do you get about a 30 SECOND MESSAGE that tries to draw you in even further. What did that click cost the advertiser? In the case of Insurance companies they will pay upward of $17 for that click. One click, reaching one person, $17. Imagine your radio station had just 10,000 listeners at any given time. If you got paid $17 per person it reached your ad rate would be $170,000 per spot... not a bad piece of revenue. In fact most radio stations deliver a "click through" for about 4/10 of one cent (more on this at RadioSalesSchool.com... its FREE)
Now on to reach and as an example: Recently we had a rather large ground fire in our area that lasted many days. What we did is to take our on are reports and record them also as videos.. no real visual part just out call letters and "Special Report". We then told people on the radio that for more information to go to our Facebook Page or JustSayNews.com. What happened? Our engagement on Facebook went to over 78,000 people for the reports. What does this prove? That having compelling content is good. But RADIO DRIVERS PEOPLE TO THE WEB.
Start by educating your staff and then customers on what to expect from the Internet and then on how to make it work. It is a great tool but it is only an electronic brochure for your business.
Fighting the digital move falls into the same category as "...your wife sure is ugly..." Local retailers are enraptured by the magic of digital...the metrics and the appearance of free (Facebook) or cheap. Radio is old media...and as a client said to me the other day, "Radio? How irrelevant!"
So we sell a behaviorally targeted digital campaign - banners or video with growing success. Lots' of issues ...but I want to be at the table and having local digital products keeps us at the table. Plus we've been successful getting budgets we've never had before because we can place the campaign anywhere in the country.
Our asset is local sales people talking to local retailers. Take advantage of it...
Dang, Blaine - what a great reply!
Reminds me of a point David Ogilvy wanted to drive home when teaching his people how to write better. He said, when it really matters, don't write; pick up the phone and call the guy. Radio is that phone call on steroids.
I'm surprised more people don't understand this. Holland Cooke has been preaching for years on the value of using radio to drive people to a website (or other online destination), where they can pick up additional information at their convenience. Blaine Parker (above) says the same thing. And the recent research on Amazon's use of media to advertise their Prime Day in July demonstrated that radio outperformed both digital and TV in influencing consumers, especially in the 18-34 demo, in moving them to visit Amazon and buy something.
Aw, shucks. Thanks, Rod.
