If we create content that matters, we will always have an audience.

“If we create content that matters, we will always have an audience.”  Mark Ramsey of Mercury Research and Hear 2.0 summarized what radio should take away from this New York Times story about How Industries Survive Change – If They Do.

Read it and remember Mark’s advice.

Points vs. Perks

Loyalty Marketing has been around for several decades now. The radio industry first tasted success with the concept through “Listener VIP Cards” in the 70′s & 80′s, and now through online rewards programs offered by vendors such as Enticent (Stickyfish) and Mass 2 One. It was airlines who truly capitalized on the idea with their frequent flier programs. Unfortunately, they’re becoming far too commonplace today as I see consumers in line with a wallet or purse full of membership cards to every pharmacy, grocery store, airline, gas station, and electronics store in town — not to mention new incentives offered by credit card companies or the still popular “Marlboro Miles” program.

Radio must find innovative ways to make our listener clubs more relevant to brand users for increased participation that benefits advertising partners and helps achieve programming objectives. The “earn points for prizes” strategy just won’t cut it today.

Listeners vs. Users

Trade publication Inside Radio quotes Bonneville‘s Director of New Media, James Webb, saying radio needs to stop thinking of its cume as “listeners” and consider them “users.” He says, “Listeners are engaged only when the radio is on. Users connect with you in other ways.” This has tremendous implications for our industry, and extends our footprint beyond terrestrial radio to the world of multimedia applications (and revenue).**

Coincidentally, the Association for Downloadable Media today released their Podcast Consumer Revealed 2008 study, derived from the 2008 Internet & Multimedia Study conducted by Arbitron and Edison Media Research.

The audience for downloadable is not only growing, but also represents a very attractive target for advertising.

Can you answer these 2 questions?

I love when Mark Ramsey points out the obvious. He talks about radio positioning in a PPM world on today’s Hear2.0 blog. I agree that most radio positioning statements are hype; but, they are a necessary evil – if they actually tell listeners why they should want to listen to your station.

And, the two questions your statement answers should be:

1. Who are we and what do we stand for?

2. How is this different from the competition in a way that matters – a lot – to the audience?

If your statement doesn’t answer those questions, you just wasted a few seconds of that song intro.

Big Brother’s watching what you hear. (R&R, 01/14/08)

By Paul Heine
In the 1970s, Dwight Douglas fantasized about a whimsical research tool that would show instant audience reaction to his every programming move: a massive map of the local market covered with thousands of miniature lights, each representing a listener. When one lit up, it meant someone was tuned to his station. Sitting in his office, he imagined the lights flickering on and off in direct response to station programming, helping him determine which songs, personalities, bits, commercials and contests were hits or misses.Now VP of marketing at RCS-Media Monitors, Douglas may soon see his dream come true. Working with Arbitron, Media Monitors is testing a revolutionary new Web-based product with the working name of Audience Response. By combining real-time airplay data from Media Monitors with corresponding minute-by-minute audience information from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM), programmers can view an electronic graph of their audience flow. Clicking on listening spikes or dips in the graph triggers playback of the audio that aired at that precise time, offering insights into how specific programming elements affect actual audience behavior—sort of like the illuminated audience map Douglas imagined 30 years ago.