New Growth Opportunities
Await DR Radio Landscape
By Daniel Meehan
With the mass media’s steady stream of
gloom-and-doom messages about the
state of the economy and its prospects for
the future, Chicken Little must be doing
cartwheels! But this popular perception of pessimism
and paranoia means only one thing to the savvy direct
response marketer — opportunity! And no medium
presents a greater abundance of opportunity to the DR
community in the current environment than radio.
Radio has never been known for embracing new business models, and, until a few years ago, the stations were
so fat and happy, they didn’t see any reason for change.
But now with traditional advertisers cutting budgets or
fleeing to new media outlets like the Internet, the industry is paying for its myopia.
Stations and networks have been forced to rethink
their business models in an attempt to identify new
sources of revenue. Fortunately with the help of DR
marketers, the radio industry — terrestrial, satellite and
online — is using the current economic environment to
reinvent itself, opening its eyes to a greater variety and
depth of revenue streams.
If you’re a direct response marketer looking for new
ways to inject life into your business and grow your
company’s sales, read on. Two ideas that are not new to
media like television or the Internet, but that represent
“virgin territory” on radio are:
Long-form radio
Social networking forums
Today’s educated consumers have come to expect
more information about a product before making a purchase. Television infomercial marketers have used this to
their advantage for years, but radio has shunned the idea
of “block advertising” out of fear of losing core listeners.
The all-powerful program directors have hung out the
proverbial “closed for business” sign to the infomercial
world, but with the rise of “infotainment” and other
product integration strategies,
we’ve found that the right
combination of salesmanship
and entertainment cannot only
help DR marketers find virgin
airtime, but the audience is
more than ready to respond. By
delivering content that’s proven to drive higher response
rates and consumer brand identity, long-form radio has
the potential to rock the radio industry.
Similarly, social networking has exploded in today’s
society and the radio industry has not taken full advantage of this cultural phenomenon. However, in the spirit
of the “better late than never” philosophy, we’ve identified three major areas where you can tap into the social
networking world and achieve strong advertising results:
Listener interaction
Mobile integration
Online forums
It has been our experience that the only way to make
this a win-win scenario for both the stations/shows and
the advertiser is to develop a turnkey solution. For instance, with one new program, it’s possible to monetize
all of the calls coming into a radio station’s programming, serving ads to all of the folks who want to speak
with Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlesinger or just their
local DJ.
A standard radio practice — calling in to speak with
the on-air talent — has been adapted to create new
advertising opportunities for direct response marketers
and an entirely new source of “non-traditional revenue”
for the stations. In addition, a true DR radio agency will
help the stations develop a platform for social interaction
that incorporates all three areas outlined above. Callers
can be encouraged to engage with the programs, and this
provides a progressive avenue for highly targeted advertisements.
Mobile integration is then utilized to allow for sharing
of the engagement with others, driving these individuals
to online forums. This provides a highly targeted audience that is engaged with the programming and advertisers in a setting that drives bottom-line results.
The mass media and Madison Avenue might see a
glass that is depleting rapidly, but as long as there is a
“sip” left, there is opportunity to prosper. Let their loss be
your gain — unprecedented opportunities are presenting
themselves daily on local, national and satellite radio,
but only for those DR advertisers willing to capitalize on
them. So if you have been sitting on the sidelines waiting
to give radio a try, get your helmet on and jump in while
you still can!
