WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB Chris Byrnes - ByrnesMedia We are seeing more radio stations generating revenue from their websites after years of pouring money into these sites. We will touch on some of the reasons for this as we update you on what we are seeing on the web these days. Spending on internet advertising continues to surge and has overtaken newspaper ads for the first time. The Interactive Advertising Bureau www.iab.net report released last month confirms that internet advertising revenues reached $5.8 billion for the first quarter of 2008 which is an 18% increase over the same period in 2007, and represents the second highest quarter ever recorded, after Q4 2007’s $5.9 billion. “We continue to experience significant growth and vitality in interactive marketing, media and advertising,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. “We expect growth to continue, as consumers spend more and more time online, and marketers find more innovative ways to reach them through digital media.” Zenith Optimedia (www.zenithoptimedia.com), the company that tracks ad spending around the world, projects a banner year for ad spending on the internet for two key reasons: 1) Online video and local search engines saw a 30% growth in internet ad expenditures in 2007 - nine times faster than the rest of the ad market. 2) Between 2006 and 2009, they project that internet ad spending will grow 85% and raise its market share from 6.1% to 9.5%.
So how does your radio station get a piece of this advertising pie? The key is to have a website that is easy to navigate, and has compelling content that brings a lot of people to your site and keeps them coming back. Radio is well positioned to drive listeners to their sites because we are a frequency medium. The site also needs to be sticky, which means people spend a lot of time on your site. Check your web stats and find out how long they spend on your site, which are the most popular pages, and on which pages your web visitors spend the most time. The best way to build WSC (web spent clicks) is to ensure the content changes frequently. Look to repurpose content that is already available at the radio station and is of interest to your web visitors. For example, your automation system can probably output an XML file displaying the title artist and time that you played every song. I believe the record store will soon become a thing of the past as the margins in selling music are no longer there. Wal-Mart has already signalled that they plan to stop selling music in their stores because they are not seeing the profits. This may create an opportunity for the local radio station to sell music via their web site. If you have built loyalty with your listeners, then why not become the site that allows them to download music or purchase the CD via a third party fulfillment company? You can easily add album cover artwork to your website and enable listeners to view any song you have played in the most recent 24 hours.
Another option to make your website sticky is to add a classified advertising system and use the power of radio to drive listeners to your website. Offer them the ability to upload ads in various categories. This will put pressure on the local newspaper classified ads and over time you may even be able to charge a small fee for pictures. There are several off-the-shelf software systems that you can bolt onto your website at a reasonable cost. Newspapers are suffering the most from the depredations of the internet, which is better at delivering timely news and is an efficient substitute for newspaper classifieds, according to Zenith. Newspapers’ share of world ad expenditures is expected to fall from 29.0% in 2006 to 26.2% in 2009.
Just as the radio station needs the Program Director to be the product policeman, so your web site requires one person who is tasked with looking after the overall look and feel of the site. However, others can also be involved in providing content and often that content already exists inside the radio station and can add value to your web content. For example, news stories, traffic alerts, etc.
Having a back end to your site so your staff can manage the content is also the key to a successful site. Calling the web design company every time you wish to make a change can be both time consuming and expensive.
How to Make Money on your Website
The hot areas where other stations are generating revenue are:
Audio Pre-roll: When someone joins your stream, they will hear a 15 to 20 second audio message and perhaps some visuals inside the audio player window, as well. You can see this in action at www.q104fm.ca. Also check out a Canadian company that has interfaced streaming with the Media Touch automation system and offers several services including audio pre-rolls. For more information, go to www.streamonfiber.com.
Skyscraper Ads: These are ads that run down either the left or right hand side of your pages. It’s important that you have software that can track and measure hits and click thru rates for each ad as well as managing the rotations and start and end dates. You can purchase and install software that will do this, or develop these tools in the back end of your site.
Banner Ads: Well-placed banner ads that are in the top half of your screen are a proven money maker and really work for the clients.
There is a company called V3me that allows radio stations and listeners to upload video and make that content available on your website. This helps drive traffic and creates revenue opportunities as well. You can learn more at http://v3me.com/.
What’s Hot on the Web
Movement on the front page is important, such as an artist scroll.
Video is also a hot item and is getting easier to create with a camera and software such as Studio 12 from www.pinnaclesys.com. We are seeing more stations equipping their news staff with video cameras so they can place the big local stories right on their site. Newspapers are doing a good job of this by the way. Check www.castanet.net, the local portal in Kelowna that is operated by Nick Frost and his staff. This is a great example of a website that makes lots of money.
Playing your radio station jingle when somebody loads your main page is also hot for lots of radio stations at the moment.
Streaming audio is important today, as it makes it easier for people to listen to you while they work at their desks. There are lots of options, but I like www.egihosting.com who offer 100 streams at 32kbs for (US) $48 a month. Their reporting information is very basic, but they are stable and easy to deal with.
Jock blogs are another means of getting perishable content onto your website. The two best free offerings out there are www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com. These can be modified to have the same look and feel as your website.
Listener Clubs: Offering your listeners exclusive content or advance notice of contests is a great way to build loyalty. However, you need a well developed plan before you start down this path, or you may end up annoying listeners who do not see the benefit. A Listener Club can also become a burden if you require prizing from the sales department all the time. In short, develop a long term plan before asking listeners to give you their personal information. Companies like M2 Media from San Diego are doing a very good job in this area. Other options include www.lecpoints.com and www.responsebase.net. They all have benefits, but charge anywhere from (US) $500 to (US) $2,000 a month per station to license the software. If you are interested in a more cost efficient model, contact our office for the information.
Audio that is compelling and that your listeners are interested in hearing at a later time has been hot ever since Apple launched the iPod. If you have a strong morning show, then make the “best of” the day’s show available as a daily download. I know of several stations that have their morning show create content that is only available on their podcasts - the bits that did not make it on the air, or in some cases, the bits that were too raunchy to make it to air. Lots of radio station websites are putting their “Joke of the Day” or their “Trivia Features” on their websites as podcasts or downloads.
Listener polls are popular, but it’s better to create your own software code as opposed to all the free offerings that are out there.
Linking to a presence on YouTube and Facebook is important. Make it easy for your listeners to find you in these social networking sites, and have links from those sites to your main web page and also the other way. One word of caution, though, make sure you keep control and you monitor what is being posted on Facebook.
Allow people to forward every page of your website to a friend. Also, allow them to sign up for RSS feeds etc.
Conclusion
There is an interesting study on our website called “Understanding the Digital Consumer” which was conducted by Scarborough Research and gives an insight into today’s digital savvy consumers, including where they live, what they buy and the way they consume media. When it comes to your radio station website, content is key, but so is a clearly defined strategy to address not only content, but also how you plan to develop the revenue side of things. It’s also important to track web revenue and show it separately on client invoices and within the station’s income statement. While the major broadcast groups have the advantage because they can dedicate staff resources to create content and spread the costs, there are lots of things the small and independent operators can do in order to create compelling websites. At ByrnesMedia, our new media division works with radio stations to develop and achieve strategic goals in this area, and many of the suggestions discussed in this article can be seen in action at www.1047.ca. If you would like to discuss how we may be able to assist your company in this area please contact our office at your convenience. |