Radio stations spend enormous energy trying to attract listeners. Then, once we find them, we sometimes wave goodbye and hope they remember to come back.
There’s a better way. A strong listener database turns anonymous Cume into people you can communicate with, learn from, activate—and bring back to the station. As you prepare for Fall, consider these ten ways to make your database a genuine programming, marketing and sales weapon.
- Make Sign-Up Worth Something.
Don’t simply say, “Join our email club.” Give listeners a benefit: exclusive contests, concert presales, prizes, station events, breaking local information or access to experiences money can’t buy. People don’t wake up thinking, “I hope I can join another database today.”
- Collect Names Everywhere.
Contests, request lines, concerts, remotes, station events, website registrations, QR codes, text clubs, and app promotions should all help grow your first-party listener database. Every interaction is an opportunity to turn an anonymous listener into someone you can reach again.
- Keep It Clean.
A database filled with outdated addresses, duplicates, and dead email accounts isn’t an asset. It’s digital attic space. Continually remove bad entries, merge duplicates, and update information. And protect listener information as carefully as you protect the station’s transmitter keys.
- Give Someone Ownership.
Who is responsible for database growth? Who cleans it? Who tracks results? Who determines what gets sent and when? If the answer is “everybody,” the real answer is probably nobody.
- Build a Communication Calendar.
Don’t contact listeners only when you want something. Develop a regular schedule of useful, entertaining communication throughout the Fall. Promote upcoming contests, concerts, morning-show events, special weekends and community activities—and always give listeners a reason to tune in.
- Segment the Audience.
Not every listener needs every message. Identify interests whenever possible: music, morning show, concerts, sports, contests, community events and other lifestyle categories. The more relevant the communication, the less likely your listener is to hunt for the UNSUBSCRIBE button.
- Reach Listeners Immediately.
Use email, text messages, your station app, and push notifications to create instant tune-in opportunities. “At 7:20 tomorrow morning…” is much more powerful than “Listen sometime.” Your database can become an appointment-listening machine.
- Map Your Audience.
Analyze where database members live and work. ZIP Code information can reveal concentrations of station listeners and help guide external marketing, promotions, remotes and sales efforts. Instead of guessing where your audience lives, let the data tell you.
- Turn the Database Into Revenue.
Database marketing can be valuable to advertisers when done carefully. Develop sponsored newsletters, exclusive offers, contests, and targeted promotions that provide measurable value for clients without turning your listeners’ inboxes into the Sunday newspaper advertising section.
- Put Local Data to Work.
Have a station remote or advertiser event coming up? Promote it specifically to listeners who live or work nearby. Use email, text, app messaging, and targeted digital promotion to invite them, provide directions, and offer a special incentive for attending.
One hundred highly relevant invitations can sometimes accomplish more than 10,000 messages sent to people who couldn’t care less.
The Lund Lesson
Your database isn’t a mailing list. It’s a listening list. Every name represents someone who already has a relationship with your station. The objective is to turn that relationship into more occasions of listening, greater loyalty and stronger advertiser results.
Spotify may know plenty about its users. Local radio should know its listeners, too.
The Lund Challenge
Before the Fall ratings period, ask: How many listeners can we reach directly—and what are we giving them a reason to listen to next? Then set three measurable goals: grow the database, increase engagement, and generate additional tune-in. Because the best Cume isn’t merely the audience you attract. It’s the audience you know how to bring back.
Pic designed by creativeart for Magnific.com.
John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming, broadcast consulting, and research firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats.