Philadelphia — We use the internet for almost everything…paying bills, reading the news, watching videos, and keeping in touch with old friends from high school. We are also using it more and more for dating and finding our soul mates.

In fact, 17% of all marriages that occurred last year were between people that first met at an online dating site. Online dating is an industry that is worth $1.049 billion annually in the USA and 40 million Americans participate in it!

So, what does this have to do with radio stations? Opportunity!

MatchLink is a singles dating network that served the radio industry for many years. The Evanston, Illinois company Spark Network Services provided an IVR-based dating service to radio stations. Radio listeners called a phone number and paid to interact with other singles through a sophisticated voice mail system. Payment was made through credit card or a 900 number. Some stations were earning a half million dollars per year with the service.

In 2005, Spark Network Services, a division of CBS Radio, was sold to Advanced Telecom Services which had been supplying dating services to newspapers, including the New York Times, for over a dozen years.

“The IVR dating system was in decline for several years and it was clearly a legacy product,” said Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services. “So, we began moving the Spark customer base to an online dating solution.”

Today, the MatchLink.com online dating solution is used by over 250 radio station affiliates. The company provides an online dating site that is customized to the look and feel of the radio station, but with the power of the largest singles database in the USA from Match.com.

“It’s a great way for a radio station to build community and it’s a valuable new source of NTR,” added Bentz.

Valuable indeed. The average online dating site user invests $239 per year. MatchLink pays its affiliates 40% of the gross sales made on the online dating service for the lifetime of the customer. The bulk of the revenue goes to Match.com and Spark takes a small share for its providing the online dating site design and operation. It also provides banner ads for the radio station web site, commercials for various radio station formats, and on-air liners for the jocks.

“As far as revenue goes, there is a real cumulative effect for the service for the radio station,” said Bentz. “Users will start going steady and drop out of the online dating pool for a while, but then they breakup three months later and are back using the service again.”

The average age for an online dating user is a surprisingly older than expected 48-years-old. Most online dating users are divorced or separated and online dating best suits their busy lifestyle. At age 26, women have twice as many male users contacting them, but at age 48, men have twice as many women contacting them.

The service is compatible for all formats, although Bentz indicated that the company has had its best success with country formats.

“Country listeners want to date other country listeners, but a CHR listener could date a classic rock listener.”

I guess that’s what compatibility is all about.

Click here to see a sample radio station online dating site. To get in touch with MatchLink, you can contact Bentz at sales@advancedtele.com or call him at 610-688-6000.

Top broadcasters are like the Florida Marlins

Presently the top operating income teams are the Marlins, Red Sox, and Nationals, followed by the Padres, White Sox, Mets, Cubs, Twins, and Yankees. In the Marlins case, their operating income is based on their paying their players on the cheap while taking their share of league revenue. So on one hand you have a team that invests heavily in their product, the Red Sox and another that takes advantage of the MLB revenue sharing model to inflate their revenue. I guess in both cases these franchises like radio groups are choosing to do business differently while ending up with ostensibly the same profitability. This of course does not take into consideration the present valuation and the long-term valuation of the two teams. There is no doubt that the Redsox present business strategy will have long term benefits that the Marlins will probably never realize.

Radio is still strong

Let’s look at radio industry and view what appears to be a Florida Marlins approach to broadcasting; an approach that values short term profit at the expense of long term stability and growth. Radio is an industry that is still strong and viable. One that given the proper financial support and investment in on air talent and long-term corporate strategy can and will lead to promoting and strengthening an industry that otherwise will slowly become irrelevant.

Long term interests

The radio industry does not have to be gutted and fail prematurely by those whose short term interest is only for themselves. Radio’s present movement toward irrelevance does not have to occur at the pace it will, given this short term business strategy that several of today’s broadcasters embrace. The industry continues to be strong, but for how long? Today’s course can change if present broadcasters are true to the tenants that propelled this industry years ago. Quality programming and a local connection to its listeners has made radio a compelling medium for many years and this can continue if those in control of major groups are willing to evolve and retool a successful industry and make it work in today’s ever changing entertainment and advertising industries.

The Solution

Broadcasters should stop the present trend toward bland non local syndication and begin to invest again in compelling local programming that interconnects closely with today’s digital offerings. More importantly, radio must become a full service local advertising provider, dedicated to supplying all of the necessary advertising solutions that a local business may consider. Radio, more than any industry, has the ability to promote their new position as the full service marketing partner to the area’s local businesses. This can and must happen. But it will require an in-depth corporate strategy that will fundamentally change the way these groups presently sell advertising. Imagine a broadcast group that sets as its number one priority the interests of the local business owner and advertiser first. That makes it a priority to educate its representatives to meet the needs of that business. This new representative will be prepared to deliver and match the most effective marketing solution for a business given the company’s particular business challenges. Imagine this and you imagine a future where radio is relevant to both the listener and the local business owner. What industry is best suited to take this position; the yellow pages, local cable or is it radio? I want to bet on radio.

National Country Radio Survey
We were involved early on in 1995 with a campaign directed at Country music stations. Over 30 major markets participating in this survey based program called the National Country Radio Survey. Television commercials were produced for all of these stations and included inbound 800 numbers so that the opinion givers could easily vote for their favorite country station in the market. We aired these commercials during the Country Music Awards show and the results for our participating stations were impressive. The initial results for each station that participated were a comprehensive database of the station’s P1 listeners and their competitor’s P1 listeners. From there the stations that
marketed aggressively to these individuals, in most cases, were most likely to see immediate ratings gains.

The More Things Change

The old adage, “the more things change the more they stay the same” is true in the efforts we must make to help a station succeed in driving higher ratings today. The survey friendly individual is still waiting for someone to ask them their opinion. Our focus as marketers and as broadcaster’s continues to be how we find these individuals and market to them. Nothing’s changed, except for the marketing tools we have to identify, reach and persuade these individuals to sample our station or to listen more often to our station. We know the traditional tools like direct mail (snap pack perforated mailer) and telemarketing but it’s the use of social media including Facebook, Twitter and online marketing that have increased our ability to help stations reach more survey households and persuade them to sample our station and to listen more often (increase listener occasions).

Impact Target Marketing, Inc.

For more information on how to generate higher ratings for your station contact Impact Target Marketing (ITM). Since 1990, ITM has executed over 5000 marketing campaigns for stations throughout the US and abroad. Our success lies in our ability to
use traditional marketing tools more effectively and creatively while understanding the nuances and benefits that social media and online marketing deliver to support a more successful marketing strategy on behalf of our clients. Contact us at info@impacttargetmarketing.com or by calling 877-219-9495.

Article Highlights:

* Brands that learn how to become companions will see a lot of success in 2011
* Agencies need to focus more on clients’ business objectives rather than media objectives
* Social will evolve beyond the Facebook app or Twitter feed, growing into ongoing conversations that
are core to the digital platform

Meet the panel

iMedia asked a panel of industry experts with unique perspectives to provide their thoughts on these topics and more — and some of their insights might surprise you. The panelists are:

Evan Gerber, principal experience design consultant, Isobar

Maria Mandel, VP, media and marketing innovation, AT&T Advanced Ad Solutions

Josh Rose, EVP, digital creative director, Deutsch LA

Dave Rosner, SVP, director, innovations unit, Initiative

Marc Ruxin, EVP, chief innovation officer, Universal McCann

Shiv Singh, head of digital, PepsiCo Beverages America

Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer, NetPlus Marketing Inc.

Brands

What brands will be hot in 2011 and why?

Marc Ruxin: There’s no way to know exactly what brands consumers will go crazy for. But one thing is starting to become clear; the new way is starting to look like the old way: reach and frequency. Which is good. Over the last 10 years, you could hit it big with an innovative digital “first, best, or only” and get a lot of lasting credit from it. From Blair Witch to BMW Films to Subservient Chicken to Shave Everywhere, we saw a lot of brands change their brand perceptions with single innovations. That’s changing.

There are simply too many people doing too many things now. Everyday there’s a new piece of news. Mitsubishi has a virtual test drive, Airwalk Invisible Pop-Up stores, Black Ops machinima viral video, K Swiss Kenny Powers video. Burger King gives away Xboxs in New York. Gap donates money to charity if you become its Facebook friend. It goes on and on. That’s not to mention the really creative online projects, like The Johnny Cash Project or The Wilderness Downtown. Those are all great ideas, but they aren’t silver digital marketing bullets. I think those are going away in favor of smart, persistent marketing plans.

Shiv Singh: This is probably a disappointing response, but I do believe that Facebook will be even hotter in 2011. It’ll evolve from being the “social utility” to a brand with which we begin and end our days. Arguably, that is already happening for many consumers. Facebook will be the internet for even more users in 2011.

Another brand that will matter in 2011 is News Corp’s The Daily. It hasn’t launched as of yet, but when it does, it is going to be extremely influential as the world’s first iPad newspaper. Will it succeed? Time will tell, but we’re certain to all learn lots from it, and it will be a hot brand.

In the physical world, I’ll place my bets on Best Buy. It’s taking the concept of “social brands” further than anyone else, and it is going pay more dividends for it. Every brand is going to need to follow in its footsteps.

Other brands that I think will continue to be hot are Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and SoBe. I happen to have some insider information on what those brands are planning, and I just know it is going to be mind-blowing!

Which brands will make the best use of new media in 2011 (and how)?

Josh Rose: Brands that learn how to become companions will see a lot of success. Our Kevin Butler, from our Playstation campaign, is a companion to gamers. People want to see what he’s going to do next. That’s the kind of accomplishment in marketing that will launch brands into new territories. Skittles is that kind of brand. You want to know what it’ll do next. Old Spice, too. These are clever, new voices that you invite in.

Ruxin: The brands that will make the best use of new media are the ones that are staffed to understand and exploit opportunities. In very few cases is this skill set native to these organizations, so brands like Pepsi have actually hired digital and social marketers to help navigate the future and seize opportunities in the present.

Singh: I think here at PepsiCo we’ve done a pretty good job ourselves with The Pepsi Refresh Project, which was recognized by Forbes Magazine as a top five social media initiative of all time. The program is getting even stronger in 2011. We’ll be leveraging all facets of digital even more strategically and will be engaging with our consumers more deeply through it.

More broadly speaking, I think brands that recognize and adapt to the fact that they have become media themselves will do well in 2011. Whether it is Procter & Gamble, Kraft, or even Apple, they’re all moving in this direction without explicitly saying so. Media companies will need to adapt to this new world order and continuously demonstrate that they bring significantly larger and more valuable audiences to the brands than what the brands can do themselves.

Denise Zimmerman: Brands that have already demonstrated the value of new media will advance their efforts and make smarter investments in new platforms, strategies, and channels for increasingly more impactful and measured return. In particular, those that have embraced and engaged in social media will triumph. Social media has swiftly become ubiquitous to the extent that almost all digital marketing programs or efforts benefit from some infusion or integration with social media.

Brands and agencies that make the best use of new media will be able to develop overarching strategies and ideas that are cross-platform and maximized to meet specific, measured objectives.

Click here to read the rest of the article on Imedia Connection

We talk the talk but…

We instruct our station reps to tell business owners that they must advertise their companies in order to increase sales and revenue. These businesses that we push to advertise are in the same position as radio. They’re keeping a tight reign on their company budget and waiting for the economy to recover. The next question is, when does radio take a preemptive and what many may consider to be a bold move to market and advertise more aggressively much like the businesses we attempt to sell each day? When?

Get your unfair share of ratings and revenue

I believe now is the time for your broadcast group to invest in its present growth and future survival and to choose a different road to success. One that requires taking a proactive approach to grow your company. To quote Robert Frost, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” History has proven that in difficult times opportunity exists for those willing to bet on their personal or corporate abilities to face difficult challenges. The broadcasters that aggressively advertise their stations now will gain an increased share of both ratings and revenue well before their competition has a chance to react. Of course one must first believe in their station’s ability to convert higher ratings into more revenue, and if you don’t then you have a larger problem. Those that do believe, however, will emerge from this economic crisis in a leadership position and get the most out of an industry that still remains viable. Who’s ready to lead?

Survey-Friendly individuals are influencers. They want information and are willing to spend time with things that interest them. When marketing your radio station you need to focus on reaching these individuals. They want to give their opinion—ask them and do it on a regular basis. Although the rating methodology has changed between Diary and PPM rated markets your overall marketing strategy should not. You need to target those survey friendly households within key PPM geographic areas.

PPM vs. Diary rated targeting

Let’s review the differences between Diary and PPM rated markets. We know for instance that there are less households being surveyed in PPM markets versus those in Diary markets. We also know that there are 25 to 35% less zip codes that are important in a PPM market than in a previously rated Diary market. In Diary markets there are new people being surveyed each week while in PPM markets the same people are surveyed each week continuously for a period of between 9 months and 2 years. Within a PPM rated market it is important to reach targeted households often to reinforce the primary reasons users listen to you.

Marketing to promote usage in a PPM world

Remember in a PPM market your ratings are not determined on recall but on actual usage. The goal for a successful marketing strategy in a PPM market is to increase the actual usage for a station over a period of time. We can do this by delivering a consistent usage message about the benefits of listening to your station.

The PPM marketing recommendation

We recommend a comprehensive marketing strategy that includes direct marketing in the form of direct mail, telemarketing and email marketing. Targeted cable television can be use to supplement your direct marketing efforts. Your message should focus on why listeners use your station. Finally, we recommend developing a comprehensive social media strategy to reach targeted influencers and survey friendly individuals. This strategy will include both SEO and SEM internet marketing tactics.

Program your station to take advantage of PPM

In order to be successful in marketing your station needs to be programmed to take advantage of the new PPM methodology. In future posts we’ll discuss the programming techniques that prominent industry consultants recommend to their stations. If you’d like to contribute to our next post on Programing in a PPM World send an email to info@impacttargetmarketing.com or call us at 978-768-3970.

Last week we surveyed thousands of individuals throughout the radio industry. This survey was promoted through our weekly blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a variety of other social media sites. Respondents included those in traffic, sales, sales management, programming, general management and others. We asked questions that many of our weekly readers have posed to us over the last 12 months. To receive a complete list of survey comments click here.

Number of Survey Respondents: 2,849
1. How would you rate the recovery of the radio industry within the last 10 months? (1 = Weak , 5 = Strong)

RESULTS:
23% = 1
28% = 2
33% = 3
11% = 4
3% = 5

2. Is radio effectively using their websites and other digital assets to generate new revenue and advertising leads?

RESULTS:
26.4% = yes
56.6% = no
16.3% = other (also include comments)

Unedited Responses:

I believe some are, and some are not. Stations are doing a lot of digiatl assets for the on air staff, but I believe there is still way more as far as leads and revenue go in that department. Anonymous

I think we need to have more traffic to the sites to generate new revenue. Anonymous

Not at all. Every on-air personality in the biz should have their own blog and podcast with web-exclusive content. Instead most stations have a website that’s too cluttered with no real content or reason to expect even a moderate number of page views. Having only a facebook page and twitter account that lets listeners know where the next remote is seems like the new media plan for most stations Anonymous

The numbers make this a quantitative answer rather than mere opinion: Radio got less than $300m last year from online sales, while TV got more than $1b and newspapers more than $3b. It’s barely a blip on their radar screens because they view it as just a cool marketing device rather than a significant new business venture. Anonymous

Still seem to be stuck in the paradigm that the transmitter is the primary asset and that digital platforms should drive listeners to the broadcast
signal. Anonymous

While some stations have an effort, there is not a professional focused, successful model out there yet. Anonymous

There are opportunities, but they are few and far between. Anonymous

not bad for the current staffing levels at stations. Anonymous

There is further we can expand on it. Anonymous

“stations” ARE SPOOLING UP…the community is remote and slow to accept new advance technologies Anonymous

3. Are market managers given more autonomy today than 10 months ago?

RESULTS:
22.1% = yes
58.0% = no
17.8% = other (also includes comments)

4. Does your broadcast group support your bold initiatives or are they more likely to promote the status quo?

RESULTS:
43.1% = bold initiatives
51.7% = status quo
2.2% = nr

5. Are you effectively marketing your station to both listeners and advertisers?

RESULTS:
38.2% = yes
51.1% = no
8.3% = other (also includes comments)
2.0% = nr

6. Do you have any suggestions for improving the radio industry? (partial unedited list)

COMMENTS:

GET back to PASSION & why we loved it to begin with. Let’s have real relateable personalities.Some GM/OM’s that have done radio in the past so they have that love in common. If a major broadcasting company is cutting employees left and right and making bad financial decisions, put a cap on how many stations people with asses for brains can have. Anonymous

LIVE & LOCAL! Our audience likes diversity & creativity. Anonymous

Corporation ownership must staff stations with local experts and get out of their way. One size does not fit all and Texas is not New York.

If the focus was on super-serving the core audience on a deep level instead of chasing dollars and pinching pennies, listeners would develop loyalty & ROI would increase dramatically. Anonymous

You bet. Care more about the listener. Keep stations well engineered and strong as they should be so people can listen whenever they tune in and they’ll listen more often. Less automation..use real people instead of just letting the computer do it. Help your talent develope so people want to listen

Get digital ASAP Anonymous

Go back to being the best station you can be. Don’t play a song just because others do. WIDEN the playlist, don’t tighten. Listeners HATE hearing the same songs over and over. Bring back the importance of PERSONALITY radio. Encourage jocks to be unique and focus on their show rather than 50 other hats in the building.
Less narrowcasting
putting the listeners first
And the advertisers WILL follow
It works! too bad the management here doesn’t understand it

More community based initiatives. Anonymous

Broadcast can no longer be a stand alone entity. Convergence isn’t the wave of the future it is how responsible broadcasters keep themselves relevant and ahead of the curve in today’s market. Failing to incorporate new media into a revenue model is a huge problem that must be dealt with Anonymous

fire the consultants. what works somewhere else, probably won’t work somewhere else. Leave the programming and sales ideas to the LOCAL people who know the markets. Anonymous

7. Which of the following best describes your job title at the station?

RESULTS:
17.5% = general manager
8.9% = operation manager
6.6% = sales manager
17.8% = program director
7.4% = sales
2.0% = program asst.
<1% = traffic
12.9% = prefer not to answer
24.4% = other ( also includes comments)
1.4% = nr

The opportunity

Look at your market and tell me how many different marketing or advertising choices there are for a business owner to consider. The answer of course is many. With many advertising alternatives come just as many sales representatives selling those services. Business owners are deluged with misinformation or conflicting information about their advertising choices. Many business owners make marketing decisions based solely on the representative’s sales pitch, others research their options on the web to determine their choice. The truth is most business owners don’t have a comprehensive marketing plan and are not well versed in many of the questions they need to ask about a particular advertising solution. Consequently, this presents a great opportunity for radio or any other media for that matter that wants to position itself as a thought leader for small businesses looking to advertise and market their company.

Small business is looking for marketing direction

There is a thought leadership void in your local market that is waiting to be filled. In fact, there’s a website called Area’s Best Business, (ABB), that was created to begin to address this issue. ABB provides unbiased marketing and advertising information to help the small business owner market their companies more effectively. The idea is that a well educated consumer of advertising services is a better customer and more importantly that by providing this information the small business owner can save money and time and give themselves a better chance to succeed. This website may be part of the solution and may begin to fill the thought leadership void but it is missing the most important component which I believe is local radio.

Why radio

Radio has the local market connection with its listeners–many of whom are small business owners. They have a digital presence that given time can become a viable aggregator and distributor of local content to its listeners and small business owners. Businesses want to feel that they can trust the information they receive. Not the self serving information that an advertising company provides for the purpose of selling their solution—a solution that may not be best suited for the advertiser. Radio can apply its local connection to the market through its airwaves and digital assets to provide marketing direction and support for the local small business owner. Through these efforts, they will build a strong relationship with businesses because they will view radio as a true unbiased resource for marketing support and direction. In turn radio will become the local market thought leader for advertising and marketing.

The initiative

An additional characteristic, as described by Wikipedia of a thought leader is “the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.” By taking the position as a marketing thought leader in their local market, radio can position itself as a true partner of small business. In turn small business owners will look to radio as a marketing resource for all of its considerations and radio will benefit mightily through this goodwill.

Learn more about becoming an advertising thought leader in your market.

The state of radio today is such that most broadcasters have little or no marketing budget to promote their stations. Sure there is the station’s airwaves, but preaching to the present listeners alone is not enough to help you gain the ratings advantage over your competitors. Let’s discuss some of the “no cost” and “low cost” options to help you affect your ratings.

A social media strategy can increase ratings

Let’s talk a little about your station’s social media strategy. Do you have one? What is the goal? If you’ve set up a Facebook page and are Tweeting, good for you. The real opportunity lies in your ability to understand how to increase the size of the group or the number of followers and create effective ways to engage present and potential listeners using social media.

Here are some of the things you need to focus on when executing an effective social media strategy designed to increase ratings:

Give the power to your audience
Keep content fresh and engaging
Make contests fun
Develop fan only content
Leverage great content so they will share
Leverage holidays and events
Listen to your audience
Give users tools to become advocates
Engage users with simple polls
Use fan pages for acquisition programs
Engage users on your wall with good questions

Done correctly your social media strategy can impact your ratings but you have got to use the right tools with compelling content to affect station awareness and usage.

Whether you market your station or not it will cost

Everything that you do or don’t do to market your station requires some form of cost. If you implement a well thought out social media plan your biggest cost is time. You’ve got to commit one or more individuals to the process of creating engaging content. Then they have to push that content to as many social media sites as possible.

If you can not market your station using external marketing solutions like direct mail, telemarketing, television, cable, etc then you are reducing your chances of successfully increasing your station’s ratings. If you don’t have the financial resources to market then your ratings and revenue will suffer—an obvious statement that bears repeating.

Click here for more information on social media for radio

By Eric Corwin

Radio is at the mercy of major advertisers if we are only “order-takers”

Each day we read in All Access, Radio-Info and other industry trade publications that radio revenues are up and then again down. We hear that more automotive ad dollars are coming back to radio and that this is not a political year and it will negatively affect radio’s revenue. I feel like radio is a little like Oliver Twist asking “Please, sir, can I have some more?” We’re at the mercy of major advertising categories. We always have been, but in today’s economy with far more media options this leaves radio in a tenuous situation. Advertising dollars are beginning to come back and that’s good but radio is still missing potential revenue opportunities.

We’re stuck in the mud

Let’s take a close look at the industry so we can figure out why we are missing these opportunities. Are we unaware of these opportunities or are we just not listening. Are we so focused on staying afloat that we don’t have the ability to seek out better ways of producing more advertising revenue? Is it that group heads are arrogant, believing they have all the answers; that by micro managing they can deliver their group’s short-term bottom-line revenue goals at the expense of the organization’s long term growth? Do they feel they are doing all they can with the limited number of resources available—time, money and a reduced staff? Some have embraced change in the form of well thought out digital initiatives while most are stuck on streaming as their number one digital accomplishment. Digital in 2010 is much more than banner ads and streaming audiences. Advertisers can now interact with smart radio stations on dozens of platforms, ie. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, etc. If we’re going to monetize our brands we need to understand it all.

The energy for change exists outside the industry

Many former employees are working on new ideas to bring to radio. As is often the case, tough economic times push individuals to look for new and better ways of doing things. These people create the test labs for change. Again is anyone listening? This reminds me of the expression “if a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear it” or in this case “if a new revenue solution for the radio industry is created and no is willing to learn about it, does it matter?” My answer is no, not until one of two things happens, the agents of change work hand in hand with the financial institutions that control broadcast groups or a broadcaster takes it upon themselves to create a task force to investigate all of the potential opportunities.

Local media thought leader
I see radio as a local media thought leader. What is a local media thought leader? It is a person or organization that conveys information about all media; a resource to help support and educate the local business owner about the benefits of each advertising solution. I was reading a comment on the Social Media for Radio Facebook group, made by Walter Sabo, where he said “the best social networking has always been done on the radio. I quite agree. We have the listener’s ear; the same person who is a business owner. As a media thought leader we can be the organization that businesses look to for unbiased information about advertising. In turn, we can offer additional marketing solutions, like local search, integrated digital solutions, social media, web development and much more. The new broadcast company of tomorrow will not limit itself to selling radio or television and a limited number of digital solutions. It will offer all solutions by partnering with other media organizations and taking a percentage of every local media dollar spent. It is time for broadcasters to embrace a new company model to take advantage of the local media landscape. There is no other media organization better suited for this opportunity. It’s time for the broadcaster to start listening.