Having talked with broadcaster after broadcaster, print seller after print seller, year after year, NO ONE can give me a string of success stories for clients using their radio station's/s' or newspaper's/s' digital services. Most sell some type of banner or tile ad because they get paid higher commission. NOT ONE WORD of consistently replicable client success.
Tell me people, what is the consistently profitable way FOR OUR ADVERTISERS to use our station's/s' digital resources, and give us the success stories to consistently sell more of such successful advertising to more advertisers? What's your strategy AND success stories FOR CLIENTS?
The primary issue is traffic. For most station sites, it's simply not possible to generate the volume necessary to move the meter. Audio streaming is, for the most part, an add-on to broadcast buys at pennies or a dollar a throw, reaching hundreds and not thousands of users.
The "real" internet - the first "w" in "www" is both the problem and the answer. Audience extension products that allow you to use your existing relationships but re-sell the "real" internet are the best answer I know. Targeted display - static or flash - video pre-roll, re-targeting. That's where success is. The days of selling businesses into useless yellow-pages like directories, single category intiatives like legal or health - those days are (fortunately) long gone. If you're not familiar with some of the terms I'm using in this reply - get familiar with them. They are your future. And for that matter, they are your present. Talk with your team about identifying and accessing an audience extension partner.
Otherwise, stick with radio & develop a great, content-driven campaign where outstanding storytelling carries the sales message.
But the fact is, this year, local digital online ad spending has eclipsed BOTH radio and TV billing. So you can bet somebody is having replicable success.
I don't know that replicable success in digital advertising is the case, Dan. I don't know of anyone who has actually quantified it effectively or believeably - at least not in sales terms. What is there is the promise of some kind of success, the attempt to embrace digital marketing and make it successful. That it is a critical element of a marketing effort is indisputable. The real question is how is it integrated with other media, how is it implemented, does the cost of generating it justify the response. Right now digital is the new 'thing' but what does seem apparent is that people are not reacting nor responding to it as projected. Digital is reaching the point where just being a part of the 'revolution' and looking forward-thinking by utilizing it may be enough to sell - but not renew. Larger market radio people we know tell us this is the case. At some point, there is accountability for performance and expectation. The 2009-2010 Pepsi project can be considered pretty conclusive proof that digital cannot stand alone. Ad agencies have positioned themselves digitally and convinced clients that digital should be the primary driving mechanism of a campaign. This is self-serving - this new breed of agencies has discovered companies and old-line agencies don't really understand fully how to use or implement digital into a marketing effort. They were once subcontracted. Now their 'expertise' is expensive, dismissive of traditional media. And without the context of knowing what has and still is working, it can be argued they are more enamored with the technology than the results. The local spending into digital marketing products is an extension of that.
We attended the RAB conference focused on digital in Indianapolis. A lot of different web, text, content, geo-targeting, et al offerings for radio stations yet , as presented, along with myriad and exhaustive reports on activities and demographics the digital products generate for you or your clients, absolutely no stories of client success ($$$) from the use of it. We were stunned. We came expecting to find resources and ideas on what works with radio and what doesn't - according to that panel discussion (with that actual topic) 'everything digital works'. At one panel presentation on digital promotions, two of the presenters from small-medium market radio stations outlined extensive, time consuming texting constructs they designed for contests. One of the contests generated $1000 in (gross) revenue for the station. The other was an elaborate bathroom makeover contest that generated $5000 (gross). Methinks that if they added up the texting set-up thru a third party (also on the panel selling their services), employee hours and staff resources spent, both contests would be a net loss. The latter contest involved the hiring of a new employee just to develop and run such promotions. And neither mentioned what bottom-line benefit any of the sponsors enjoyed. The priority for these two presenters seemed to be more that they pulled off a digital promotion than what the net result of it was... besides 'creating excitement', a fairly nebulous and short-lived effect.
Are we integrating texting, facebooking, et al into our contesting and communicating with listenership? Yes. Will we pursue the geo-targeting we went to the RAB to find a resource for? Yes. This kind of thing is imperative to add to our own and our clients' marketing.
