Being Where the People Are, For the People
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You're probably tired of hearing about the radio industry needing to be everywhere; broadcast, internet, cellphones. It's but one of the ongoing conversations on how to save radio's image. Despite lots of talk, on the street, there is very little energy spent improving the situation.
We can pull from a dozen categories concerning where things went wrong for radio. Ultimately, sum it up that the economics of the radio industry don't work anymore.
Being judged against other available conduits to the masses, radio's value is diminished. The age-old approach of arbitrarily assigning a dollar amount to sixty-seconds for a radio commercial is not being as readily accepted by those who make ad-buying decisions. There are other areas lacking, too.
One small item to look at has been around for about a decade. It's been written about here many times and is still not any farther along the development path than when first suggested to radio industry leaders: Search engines are, and will continue to be, the most efficient way of corralling people with interest in your product - be they advertiser or audience.
We've often discussed radio stations lacking an ability to get a high search engine rank in specific keywords. Under the search term "hip hop radio stations", 5 radio industry players are found in the top 10 returns at Google. You need to drop to (approx.) #65 to find the next. Of those in the top ten, 2 are Emmis-owned and three are Clear Channel stations. How many other radio groups exist? Why is it no other broadcast radio station can crack the top of this search engine return postion ( SERP)?
Turn to using "rap radio stations" as your search term, and it gets worse. No commercial broadcast stations are listed in the top 100 returns.
Trying to build an audience locally requires one strategy. Trying to build your online audience, in these two formats that youth are strongly attached to, requires a different approach - you must be found online to be heard.
In both of the above search terms, note the #1 SERP. It's Audio Graphics-owned RadioRow.com. (For "rap radio stations" it holds the #1 & 2 slots.) Here are some stats which show why being listed highly in search returns is important. As of this morning:
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Of the 24,000 unique visitors to the Rap/Hip Hop page at RadioRow over the past thirty days, 83.3% came to it using Google.
- This group spent an average of four minutes and fifteen seconds on this page.
The top five keywords sending people to this RadioRow page are "Rap Radio," "Hip Hop Radio Stations," "Hip Hop Radio," "Rap Radio Stations," and "Radio Rap." All but one of these keywords, when used on Google, delivered RadioRow.com as the #1 choice. (Hip Hop Radio shows it being #7.) None of them deliver a large number of commercial radio station web sites.
Now, change the keyword searched for. Let's say you're one of thousands of small business owners looking for advice about advertising on the radio. You do what any person does in 2009, you turn to Google and type "radio advertising," "advertising on radio," "radio advertising information," or any number of keywords describing what you want to accomplish. As a test, take the preceding three keywords. Click on each to see your SERP. The Radio Advertising Burea does show up, but it's not geared towards helping a small business owner understand how to spend money with radio.
If you go to the RAB web site and select "For Advertisers," you are delivered to a page where the main thrust is pushing HD Radio. There is nothing - nothing - that helps me (as a small business owner) understand how to use the medium of radio to develop business, how to create a campaign, how to schedule ads, or find talent to voice them.
The first tab on the menu from the above "For Advertisers" page at RAB.com pushes HD Radio. The next two tabs on the menu deliver this message (to the person who is looking for guidance on spending money with local radio): "How Does This Work? While many of the resources on RAB.com are open to the public, a number of the more advanced sales and marketing tools require a user id and password."
The next tab, one marked "Marketing Guide," gives a new menu with "Welcome," "Get the Data," "Custom Profile," Open in PowerPoint," and Research Index."
I've been looking, and still have not found any information to help me build a campaign. But, after I click on the "Welcome" tab and hear the same promos lines that radio uses in its on-air "Radio Heard Here" campaign, I find these (below), in response to my clicking on a few of this page's other menu tabs.
"Get the Data"
"Custom Profile"
There is, obviously, a disconnect between what I (as a small business owner is looking for to use radio) and what the radio industry's own organization is delivering. There is nothing here that excites or causes a potential local advertiser to become more intrigued with radio.
Radio's product, for audience and advertiser, is plodding along with little interest shown - except from the radio industry trade publications, including Clear Channel-owned Inside Radio. What side of the industry fence do you think these publications talk about? Do they ever mention the topics talked about here or on other sites discussing what's killing the radio industry?
Though you may be tired of hearing about radio needing to improve, you need to be faced with these words everyday because radio, as an industry or station, seems stuck in its predictable no-growth path. Until jarred from it, pundits have a place and need to keep pointing to the flat tire.
Tired of hearing it or not, the conversation needs to continue.
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