Brian Curee “Why Does a Radio Station Need Digital Marketing”
The radio is one of the most powerful communication tools on the planet. Audio is incredibly intimate, and it’s why radio stations have survived amidst the development of big-screen TVs and video gaming. Radio is a nimble media, too, since it can be played while multitasking. For instance, many people listen to the radio while driving, while working, or even while preparing dinner at home. So why do radio stations need digital marketing?
Digital marketing for radio is all about expanding your connection with the audience. It’s important to stay top-of-mind, right? If you don’t invest in these relationships on more than one channel, your audience might forget about you when they’re not listening. Here’s why digital marketing for radio is so important. It could make the difference between staying stagnant and growing your station’s P1 audience on digital.
Connect with Regional Listeners
Your radio station probably caters to a particular geographic region. You might comment on local sports events, fundraisers, and the local weather. When you do giveaways, it’s for tickets to a local concert or a well-known store downtown. Listeners love this kind of regional specificity. It creates community pride and helps people stay in touch with what’s going on in their city. Whether you’re focused on working people or retirees, local content tends to do well with listeners.
Digital marketing for radio can help you connect with more regional listeners. The first way to do this is by doing geo-targeted advertising. You can create paid advertising campaigns online that target people within your specific geographic area. If your station is trying to grow its audience in the suburbs, you can easily create an ad targeting those specific zip codes.
Another tactic is to use your digital presence to create a more robust local presence. You could highlight local businesses and churches on your radio station’s website. Have you ever thought about highlighting a local church service or virtual event by embedding it on your website? Think about ways you can show your hometown pride and become an online hub for local information, so that people visit your website when they’re not listening to you on the air.
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/father-teaching-his-son-how-to-ride-a-bike-5792901/
Keep the Relationship Going Off the Air
In the same vein, digital marketing for radio is the only way to create truly multidimensional relationships with your audience. After all, you don’t stop thinking about your listeners when your shift is over. You’re always thinking about the types of content that will help your audience, or jokes that will make them laugh. Take that same attitude and put that energy into a website or social media channel.
Keep the relationship going off the air by creating opportunities for engagement online. Run a contest on your website and encourage people to submit their ideas. Share behind-the-scenes photos on Instagram and let your audience get to know who you are. Digital marketing for radio can help your station stay top-of-mind all the time, on every platform that makes sense for your audience, even when the dial gets switched off.
Collect Analytics to Improve the Business
Digital marketing for radio provides your business with analytics. In other words, a website can give radio station managers a detailed report on the demographics, the habit patterns of visitors, and audience interest.
This can help you plan upcoming shows and topics, as well as outreach events and new marketing campaigns. If you’re not measuring the success of your efforts, then you could be wasting energy and money. Digital marketing tools can help with this. This means tracking your engagement rates, shares, comments, clicks, purchases, and more.
Overall, digital tools offer a lot of great benefits to radio stations. You can incorporate clickable ads, digital tracking, lead generation, and other targeted outreach efforts. It’s all about growing your connection with your audience, so they trust you more.
All of this can help grow your radio station and augment the brand you’re building on the air. If you need help launching a digital strategy for your radio station, reach out to Brian at Killer Bee Marketing and their team can help generate some buzz for your station.
Brian Curee is the CEO & Digital Strategist for Killer Bee Marketing. He has worked in the digital field professionally since 2006 and has served the Christian Radio Industry since 2013. He has completed Donald Miller’s StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap and has a degree in Computer Science and Theology. Brian is passionate about helping people in the Christian Radio industry create a digital strategy that delivers clarity, improves conversions, and grows their station’s audience online by providing digital consulting, coaching, and training services. You can contact Brian at brian@killerbeemarketing.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.