Shift in Mindset Required Online
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One of the multiple barriers to hurdle when moving the radio industry online is accepting a mandated shift in mindset. It's forced by the fact that many radio station positions are wrapped around an individual completing a task within the organization. Those individual tasks all come together to form the programs and commercials.
Sales execs sell, then push the next step to traffic for scheduling. (In some cases sales will coordinate with the promotion department.) Traffic informs programming of how content and commercials flow. Production creates. The process ends with invoicing and hopefully receiving payment without multiple statements.
Very seldom does radio require that individuals from multiple departments work in unison to make one ad campaign. That's not the way it works online.
I've been involved with nearly 2 million dollars in online advertising buys. Budgets have run from $1,200 to $50,000 monthly. In each campaign it was a requirement for multiple parties to coordinate efforts, which could include a marketing strategist, tech-person, graphic designer, and tech-2. (A tech-person's responsibility is interacting with whatever metrics machine is used, and making sure all logic/code in the campaign works - from ad impression through to the "thank you" page confirmation code. The tech-2 is concerned with designing the landing page in the web site's code language.)
The degree of difficulty in implementing a campaign on-air is rather simplistic: land deal, write copy, voice words, run on-air, invoice. I'll acknowledge varying levels of production, but let's stick with the standard voice-over-music. It seems to be used the most.
What happens in the radio industry when an account executive handles a request for a banner ad on a station web site?
Not being an insider for the above question, I'll take an educated guess - one that's driven through viewing the code at many broadcast radio web sites. My bet goes that the station accepts the banner ad supplied by the advertiser, or quickly gets a group artist to "whip something up." (It's the equivalent of the "just get it on the air" thinking that permeates radio.) Then the banner ad is plugged into the web site. At campaign's end, at best, the advertiser receives impression and click-through numbers along with a bill. If anyone can show that a majority of radio station web sites handle an online campaign differently, it would be a pleasure to correct what's described here.
Multiple people are required to make an online ad campaign work, especially if you intend to derive actionable data from the run or to test various landing pages. The radio industry is not set up to provide this departmental interaction. Many times radio does not have the people on staff for a coordinated interaction. That is why a required mindset-shift must be pushed from the top down. People with new skill sets are needed in the chain.
If you don't receive support from above to pull in multiple people to help with an online ad campaign, you're not really swimming in internet advertising waters. Chances of you providing firm data on campaign performance are slim.
That end-data, along with the pre-campaign planning, is what differentiates an internet ad campaign from online advertising delivered by the radio industry.
This shift in mindset is every bit as hard as the one required to quit smoking (with a success rate not much better). In either case a shift is needed. If it doesn't come in radio, the industry will not see online gains equal to the rest of the internet ad world.
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