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Make Website a Legal Weapon
May 5, 2009
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Examine and improve your website. A great website is imperative to build and maintain audience. It's constantly updated and chock full of great, useful information -- like movie reviews and local movie times, the weather, traffic, local news, entertainment and music news, a schedule of concerts, pictures from all station events, a list of all the things going on in the community in the weeks to come, and audio streaming to expand the station's reach. A good 90% of station website viewers are radio station P1s. Consider this checklist to help make your website a lethal marketing weapon:
Content is King and instant gratification is important. The Internet is a "give it to me now" medium; people use it for speed and convenience.
Promote the Address Frequently on-air and provide reasons for listeners to go to it, like weather and traffic updates, song information, breaking news, or a contest entry.
At-Work Audience drives TSL. Create a "Join the At-Work Internet Club" promotion.
Blogs. Write an ongoing forum or blog for key attractions at your station.
Frequent Listener Club. Create, promote, and constantly update the database.
E-mail the Database. Continually cultivate this important listener group. A typical database should be 8-10% of the average cume; 15% is excellent.
Home Page. It should load quickly and present a clear view of the station.
Have an Identity. Make it easy for people to figure out what you do on the opening screen.
Listener Benefits should be in clear view. Include your positioning phrase, music quantity pledge, morning show name and an example of listening attractions (a recent stunt).
Music Info. Give the title and artist of the song currently being played, and those played previously over the last hour. Allow listeners a way to buy songs they hear on the air.
iPod Downloads. Make available podcasts of special shows, features, and artist content so people can listen at their leisure. Offer a sampler or "trial size" download of your station.
Local Info. Have a website that's local in appearance yet global in functionality, providing useful info like weather, local sports, school closings, road construction zones or delays, etc.
Search Engines. Make it easy for your site to be found in search engines and directories. Show up on the first page of results when Googled.
Have Relevant Pictures that are attention-getting and desirable; have photo captions. Attain artist images; provide downloads, desktop wallpapers, buddy icons, and station logo.
E-mail the DJ. Make it convenient for listeners to email an air talent or have Instant Message capability to the studio. IM is the new request line! Consider webcams, too.
Stream Your Audio. It makes the site more valuable and extends the reach of the station to more at-work, long listening span people.