Websites provide an interesting challenge for radio stations. Pretty much every station in the country has one, but the quality of the design and content varies massively. Having the right strategic vision is one thing, but having the resources to do it is another. Many stations fall into the ‘relaunch’ trap. They get a spangly new site, but they never have the time to keep it up to date with the latest station news or even a picture of the new drivetime presenter.

From a revenue point of view though, the sites are more and important. Whilst up-selling your existing clients to include some form of web activity will add to their marketing spend, there’s also the opportunity to run banner campaigns from networks who are keen to target your listeners. A ‘CPM’ – the money you can generate from 1,000 banner impressions – can bring in £10 to £20 – depending on the type of radio station. That means 350,000 banner impressions at a CPM of £15 could bring you in an extra £5k/month from new advertisers sold on a commission-only basis. This means that putting effort into content that generates page impressions can have an instant, measurable effect.

We work with clients to help develop a content strategy for their station and then work with a cross-section of their staff to teach them about the right kind of content and how to build it into their existing work flow. We have also built radio-specific web applications that are easy to update and allow stations to build their page impressions.

Listener Clubs

Many radio stations solicit for people to join their online listener clubs, less send out regular emails!

Folder has built a system and support package that helps stations create, send and market their newsletters. In fact our package helps stations cope with all aspects of running a successful mailing list:

Direct email and SMS solutions for any size database

Create, deliver and manage online campaigns

Data tracking, reporting and analysis

Design of newsletters

Advise on content strategy/Help draft initial newsletters

Provide extra promotions and revenue opportunities

We believe that there are many benefits a station can derive through well-timed, regular emails. These include:

Building a personal relationship between the station/air talent and the listeners, something that drives time spent listening

Drive large numbers of listeners (the database) to new online content in a short period of time to help page impressions/response rates

Inform listeners about something happening within the next 24 hours – for example an online call to action for the ‘listen at 8.15 competition’

A new medium for local advertisers to drive traffic to their site

Facebook Marketing

Facebook has taken the UK by storm over the past 12 months and has generated phenomenal user interaction within radio’s key demographics.

There are lots of opportunities in using Facebook to aid marketing campaigns. As well as leveraging the ‘free’ elements of Facebook – Pages, Groups and Events, Folder has also been involved in booking media campaigns through Facebook’s advertising system.

The advertising system allows advertisers to target specific geographic locations, demographics, workplaces and individual interests. It is an extremely cost-effective way to market programming or commercial elements, all at an incredibly reasonable price.

For more information, or to talk about ways we can help your station’s listener marketing, please contact Matt Deegan.

Picture from PSD