KEEPING YOUR SHARE

Chris Byrnes

Your radio station may be facing its greatest challenge ever. While you may currently battle against a few signals that either originate locally or beam into your primary listening area from close by, but this is all about to change.

In fact it already has. Right now there are hundreds of radio stations offering all types of formats, both niche and mass appeal, to your listeners via the internet. Fortunately most people don’t know how to access them, cannot be bothered, or their connection is too slow. This is changing quickly as internet radio stations promote themselves and sell their benefits, while at the same time more and more people are discovering the net, and soon will access it via cell phones, PDA’s and other devices just coming to market.

Today, it’s so easy and low cost to set up a radio station on the net, delivering a product that is free from any regulations that terrestrial stations must adhere to. Take a minute and punch up www.daer.com, an A/C station based in Cleveland Ohio, but broadcasting to the world, and making money. Its owner is just 19 years old and he built the site while he was still in school.

As of next year there will be hundreds of radio stations beaming into the North American markets via Satellite and cable, some free and others fee based. There are at least two satellite providers who intend to offer world wide coverage within the next two years. I toured the studio and up-link facilities of one of the big players in the Satellite radio race last year. They are confident of getting a 1% share per format, but they intend to have 100 formats!

What should you do? I suggest your station will survive and even thrive, if you invest the time and energy to build your brand loyalty and form a strong bond with your community so you are the go-to station for information, events and entertainment. Five years ago radio stations in the U.S were running scared because Howard Stern was beaming his irreverent show from New York into their markets, and overnight stealing huge audience shares. However a few programmers kept theirs heads and beat Howard in their home market simply by being local and very plugged into the community.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Database Marketing: Every year thousands of listeners call your station to win prizes, register for contests or simply ask for information or a request. Capture this data, store and sort it so you can then communicate with these fans and build loyalty. A New Zealand company called Enter (www.enter.co.nz) has some great software that will do this for you.

• Visibility: Look for ways to make your station more visible in the market place in a quality manner. For example find empty store fronts and make a trade deal with the owner to put your station logo or information in the shop window.

• Become More Interactive: Create a voice mailbox on your phone-system, or pay the $3.00 a month for a Call answer service from Bell. Get a friendly phone number and create a "Feedback Phone" or "Listener Suggestion Line", and promote it on air. Have the PD or GM clear the messages every day, and put together montage promos. Be sure you air both the positive and the negative, act on the appropriate suggestions, and tell your audience when you make improvements as a result of their suggestions. Most people won’t complain when they don’t like a product, they just hit the scan button.

• Market Research: Do basic market research to find out what your target audience likes and dislikes about your station. Create "Listener Advisory Panels", or recruit telephone researchers and an experienced research supervisor. Make sure you have someone qualified to design the questionnaire. If you have the budget, hire a research company. This does not have to cost a lot of money, and you may be amazed by the information you get back.

• Event Marketing: Radio stations are famous for piggy-backing onto other organizations events. However the station often gets lost in the logo jumble and the benefit is lost. Look at all the events you were involved in last year, isolate the ones that fit your criteria and put most of your energy into owning them.

• Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies: Develop a plan to have your key personalities make public appearances, over and above the ones the sales department sell. Write to the service clubs, schools, and charitable organizations, and offer your stars as guest speakers. You may want to have your creative department help with the speech, and assist in putting together the audio/visual presentation. This is a great way to build the bond, and it gives your air talent the chance to meet and connect with your target audience. The smart ones will also have some great bits for the next days show.

• Do A Product Checkup: Monitor your station for 24 hours and look at every aspect of your product. Decide where your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are, and develop a plan to maximize your strengths and opportunities, and minimize or eliminate your weaknesses and threats.

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