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What is the best marketing strategy for our online radio?

by loveradio
22 replies
Greetings forum members!

We run a small independent online radio. If it is relevant, we play dance classics.

We have hired a blog writer on freelancer.com. We plan to publish one blog per week. We have a website, Facebook, Twitter account, and a mobile app. Our blogs will be published on these social channels we manage at the moment.

We aren't satisfied with the current number of listeners. We understand that something needs to be done in terms of an appropriate and effective marketing strategy. We have some ideas, but we would like to hear some expert's opinion on these:

Should we launch a YouTube channel or create a LinkedIn account? If so, what would be the potential benefits for our radio?
Should we invest some money in Facebook and/or Twitter campaigns? We are a little skeptical about the paid followers and members. We read a thing or two about it online. Can you clarify a little bit?
What would be the most suitable marketing campaign for our online radio?

We would be happy to provide additional information if necessary.

Regards,
LoveRadio Team
#listeners #marketing #marketing strategy #online #radio #strategy
  • Profile picture of the author Marx Vergel Melencio
    LoveRadio,

    Originally Posted by loveradio View Post

    We run a small independent online radio. If it is relevant, we play dance classics. We have a website, Facebook, Twitter account, and a mobile app.
    We could probably give more specific advice if we can take a look at your website, Facebook page and mobile app. Your ideal listener (country, age, relevant gender, interests, etc.) would also be very helpful.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by Marx Vergel Melencio View Post

      LoveRadio,



      We could probably give more specific advice if we can take a look at your website, Facebook page and mobile app. Your ideal listener (country, age, relevant gender, interests, etc.) would also be very helpful.
      You are absolutely right, but we sure hope you can understand that this something that our competitors are looking forward to seeing. Can you give your best shot based on the available info?
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      • Profile picture of the author Marx Vergel Melencio
        LoveRadio,

        Originally Posted by loveradio View Post

        Can you give your best shot based on the available info?
        Sure. Why not?

        Well, my general advice is to list down the Web properties of your most successful competitors.

        Find those with large active userbases, established presence in relevant social networks and online communities, and top ranking pages in Google for relevant exact match keywords that are used by your target listeners when they want to search for online radio streams and music.

        Then, use SimilarWeb.Com and SpyFu.Com to learn about the most effective traffic generation methods used by your top competitors, namely:

        ** Direct Traffic - These tools will show you the percentage of direct traffic that they get. This allows you to study what they're doing in their Web properties that's relevant to generating direct traffic, i.e. Do they have enticing opt-in offers? Membership subscriptions? How are their subscription funnels crafted?;

        ** Referral Traffic -- You'll also learn the percentage of referral traffic that they get through these tools, and you can also identify the referring sites where they get the most traffic from. This enables you to confirm if there are possible content placement and advertising opportunities for you in those referring sites;

        ** Social Traffic -- These tools also tell you the percentage of social traffic that they're getting, and the social networks that they use. This can in turn allow you to study what they're doing in those social networks. You can also confirm if there are possible content placement and advertising opportunities for you in those social networks;

        ** Organic Search Traffic -- These tools show you the percentage of organic search traffic that they're getting, and the best keywords that they use for their SEO campaigns. You can then study what they're doing for their onsite and offsite SEO campaigns to confirm if it would be feasible for you to compete against them for those keywords. You'll also have the ability to discover different exact match keywords with significant search volumes and lower competitiveness, especially if you use tools like UberSuggest.Org (install their browser extension so you can get monthly search volume estimates from the Google Adwords Keyword Planner with the keyword ideas that'll be given by this tool); and

        ** Paid Search & Display Traffic -- These tools can show you the percentage of paid search & display traffic that they're getting from their advertising campaigns in Google Adwords, along with the keywords that they use. You can then look at their longest running ads and study how they're crafted. You can also verify if it'd be feasible for you to bid against them for their best keywords in Google Adwords. Using the same tactic I mentioned above, you can also discover new keywords that you can use for your organic SEO and paid search & display campaigns ...

        Plus, you can list down non-competing sites in laterally relevant niches where your target audience hangs out. For example, if your ideal listener could most likely be interested in a laterally relevant niche like teen celebrity gossip or certain types of games, then you can list heavily trafficked Web properties and apps with large active userbases in those niches; and

        You can then use the same tools to learn more about those sites, and also verify if there are content placement and advertising opportunities for you in those Web properties ...

        Hope this helps!
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        • Deep Learning & Machine Vision Engineer: ARIA Research (Sydney, AU)
        • Founder: Grayscale (Manila, PH) & SEO Campaign Manager: Kiteworks, Inc. (SF, US)
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingMongers
    Target marketing based on your listeners demographic.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by MarketingMongers View Post

      Target marketing based on your listeners demographic.
      People who still love dance classics. This can be a tricky part. Nowadays, both young and those who still feel young enjoy listening these timeless hits. Nice point made, though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rafee Azad
    Radio seems simple. Just because daily we hear a new radio personality create his show audio so effortless men and women think radio is something all to easy to do. But constructing a successful Internet R / c Station and expanding your audience is incredibly hard work. It will require craft, skill, want, and training. If you get desire and ability this article will aid you to succeed. You will find out 10 strategies that one could implement absolutely help get more listeners for ones radio station.

    Internet radio stations worldwide have increased his or her listeners using these kind of strategies. They have helped a huge number of broadcasters to find, keep, and expand audiences. These strategies help every language along with every country as they are based on the regular denominators of man connection, communication and affiliate marketing.

    You already created your internet radio station; you happen to be streaming, ok, now where include the listeners? When you placed you radio station online the project does not stop there. To get listeners you will want more than only to put your place online.

    First tip- create your station brand short, simple along with unique. Short= all to easy to remember, Simple= all to easy to write, pronounce, don't forget, Unique= no hesitation, when someone references your station everyone should know what station the face is talking about because there isn't a other station achievable name.

    Second tip- search for a niche un monitored, if you want to generate a rock station that may be fine- go for it, but you can have more competition plus the road to success are going to be harder and tougher than if you ultimately choose material for an audience which is not overdone. For case in point: A radio place for kids may do well- selecting surprised about what number of kids are associated with the internet currently.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Thank you for understanding of our situation, but we would really like to hear what are the best practical ways to improve our situation.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sam JTB
    You should look into launching a YouTube channel.

    There are many radio stations and podcasts that do like a "best of" video where it kind of wraps up the highlights/main points of the week.

    I'm not sure how you would do this with music, but if you ever do interviews it could be a possibility.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by Sam JTB View Post

      You should look into launching a YouTube channel.

      There are many radio stations and podcasts that do like a "best of" video where it kind of wraps up the highlights/main points of the week.

      I'm not sure how you would do this with music, but if you ever do interviews it could be a possibility.
      Excellent point. Much appreciated. We have some old school DJs we would like to conduct a series of interviews with. We definitely don't want to get into copyright trouble associated with the videos. However, a series of interviews is an excellent idea, indeed.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi loveradio,

    What you probably want to do is advertise your radio station. I suggest you launch some branding & awareness campaigns, utilizing display ads, video ads, and social media ads.

    The top ad platforms for advertising your niche are Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, And Twitter Ads. Forget about LinkedIn, it is more for B2B advertising, not what you are doing.

    Before choosing the exact strategy, first set some goals for exactly what you want to achieve with your marketing plan. Then formulate a strategy that is designed to reach your goal. Do not skip this step else you will have no way to measure your progress if it isn't clear exactly where you want to be at on a certain future date.

    Create some nice display ads and video ads to run on those platforms. Be sure to create a variety of ads and formats, test at least 2-4 value propositions to see which your audience will respond to in the most favorable way, based on your marketing goals.

    In your niche marketing events are often a good strategy. Create themes for the day, or for scheduled time periods and promote those events in your marketing campaigns, schedule on-air parties, and other topical events to promote. Those events can become extra vectors to attract new audiences. You need lots of events and new things happening all the time to keep your existing audience interested and to draw in new listeners.

    You have a tremendous amount of targeting options on those ad networks so you need to create a few personas for your typical target audience. Find ways to segment your audience into relatively small audience segments so that you can target each segment individually and test marketing messages on each individual audience segment. It's likely that slightly different marketing messages will be needed for each segment.

    Implement marketing analytics so that you can accurately measure the behavior and actions of website/app visitors targeted in all your advertising and promotional campaigns. It's easy to waste valuable time and resources on marketing efforts that are not paying off, which you can avoid simply by measuring with the proper marketing analytics. Use Google Analytics and integrate it with you conversion tracking tags provided by each ad platform. Use custom campaigns for non-Google platforms.

    Once you have identified the segments that are responding most favorably to your marketing messages, concentrate nearly all of your marketing efforts where you are getting the most traction. Be sure that you have adequate data before making that decision, too little data will lead to bad marketing decisions.

    Utilize remarketing campaigns to re-engage previous website/app visitors. Some people may need to be re-engaged dozens of times before they become a regular listener to your radio station.

    HTH,

    Don Burk
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      We are hear you, but we are concerned about the potential costs. Our advertising options are limited as you might have guessed.
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  • Profile picture of the author gingerninjas
    Hi Love Radio,

    I worked for quite a few years in my early career in traditional radio - so while it is slightly different the targeting of listeners has some similarities.

    It sounds like you have:

    - website
    - Facebook, Twitter account, and a mobile app.

    I am interested if you are doing any specific advertising at all.

    While these sites are up, what is driving new listeners to them?

    I would suggest as a starting point to do some advertising on Facebook for a month or so and testing the results, as well as this I would also consider some targeted banner ads.

    Is your aim to get more advertisers?

    I think the Youtube channel could also be a good idea, so people can 'see' the announcers too.

    The traditional advertising and drive for listeners in a physical radio station has a heavy focus on listener engagement, so that is outside broadcasts, special listener events that are attended, giveaways in the community, live crosses and those sorts of things. Have you considered holding a special listener event when you 'meet' and greet people in a specific area?

    Or alternatively do you do any giveaways at all, this is always a good way to go for engagement and the prize cupboard idea is always enticing.

    Above all start with the social media advertising and banner ads and I would be very interested to see if this gets traction for you.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      This let's advertise for a month and see how it goes idea doesn't sound bad at all. Talking about the interaction, we hope to spark some discussions and make people to comment their favorite hits. This is the reason why we hired a freelance booger in the first place.
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  • Profile picture of the author tarek mohamed
    Provide free content, free sources, free interactive tools on your site, to attract the target market, it is a brilliant strategy to increase your transactions and sales. Whenever your site interactive with active visitors, keep them happy and the more experience of your site, the more visitors rely on your site, then your turn after a period into a major source of a certain segment of the information.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by tarek mohamed View Post

      Provide free content, free sources, free interactive tools on your site, to attract the target market, it is a brilliant strategy to increase your transactions and sales. Whenever your site interactive with active visitors, keep them happy and the more experience of your site, the more visitors rely on your site, then your turn after a period into a major source of a certain segment of the information.
      At the moment we can provide free blogs and music. Some videos on YouTube and that's it. We sure hope everything is not going to come down to the paid advertising.
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  • Profile picture of the author st0nec0ld
    Hmm.. have you tried using facebook live? Youtube can be a good option too..
    I think it is much better if you can extend your resources on different platform (as much as possible), to eventually earn new followers and increase your online presence.
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  • Profile picture of the author SS Raj
    What I'm suggesting is put your best marketing effort in focusing on people in the inner ripples.Because word of mouth is the amazing source of new listeners, make it advance for your most faithful listeners. so that they can advertise about your radio. Offer them posters, stickers, extra copies of your program guide, and many more. So that they can give them to likely new listeners. Represent new offers for new listeners.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by SS Raj View Post

      word of mouth is the amazing source of new listeners
      I have to admit that I'm a little bit skeptical about the power of this particular source of recommendation. Word of mouth in the digital world. But then I remember what's going on with the movies these days. Aren't the people strongly dependent on what others have to say about it? So, this is something I will definitely discuss with my partner. Thank you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    I'd take a guess on the available information and say that nostalgia is a big part of your demographics. I'd build everything around that and build a community of nostalgia around the radio station. We have two customers who we assisted to do that (one in fact was a musician) and it did very well. They ended up building a list and selling products to their community

    A good portion of people listening to those classics have memories and stories around the time they first heard them or enjoyed them at clubs. Its the very kind of thing facebook is actually good at rather than just directly selling a product.
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      I'd take a guess on the available information and say that nostalgia is a big part of your demographics. I'd build everything around that and build a community of nostalgia around the radio station. We have two customers who we assisted to do that (one in fact was a musician) and it did very well. They ended up building a list and selling products to their community

      A good portion of people listening to those classics have memories and stories around the time they first heard them or enjoyed them at clubs. Its the very kind of thing facebook is actually good at rather than just directly selling a product.
      So many contributors here pointing in Facebook's direction. So, this is definitely not a coincidence. Now, I'm even more convinced that paying for some ads on Facebook could be the right thing to do.
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  • Profile picture of the author n3o
    facebook ads would be affective
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    • Profile picture of the author loveradio
      Originally Posted by n3o View Post

      facebook ads would be affective
      Exactly what I have been thinking about. Thx.
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