One channel that is particularly effective in driving digital traffic for brands is radio. It's immediate and it allows you to craft punchy calls to action. Radio gives you an often-captive audience - people listening in cars and offices - while online is an ideal platform for interacting with them. Together, radio and online are powerful partners.
Here are a few ways you can drive better performance across your website and other digital platforms by means of radio campaigns.
• Build digital channels into your calls to action: Invite customers to visit your social media profiles, website, or .mobi site, or to download your app in your call to action. By steering customers to a website or social media presence - where they can access more information and act on an offer - you can drive more conversions.
• Be interactive: Digital is a great way to bring more interactivity to your marketing and drive real engagement with your customers. Get consumers involved in your marketing campaigns. Use your radio ads to launch social media competitions and activations. A restaurant chain might ask you to wear your slippers to breakfast to get a free cup of coffee, then to post a pic on Instagram to enter a competition. That's one way of turning a 30-second spot into days of social media buzz.
• Measure campaign activity in an integrated way: Remember to monitor how your radio campaigns and digital channels interact with each other. Radio can influence how consumers behave when they're back online, so people who have been exposed to a radio activation are up to seven times more likely to click on a banner. In addition, online activity is a great way of tracking how much interest and engagement your radio campaigns are creating. Digital is the easiest way to track who you are reaching and how interested they are in your message.
• Look at your radio partners' online offerings: Radio stations are also extending into the digital world by, for example, using video on their websites to reach users on new platforms and to add value to their broadcast offering. You should also consider how you can use these platforms in your campaigns, since they'll be talking to your target audience. For example, you could make use of a radio station's website to improve frequency, or you could find ways to use its social media presence to your benefit.
• Target by time of day: Target your radio audience during peak times such as rush hour traffic, then continue the conversation through digital display advertising. This adds visual impact to your audio message and keeps you in the audience's mind during the rest of the day.
• Leverage regional reach: With regional radio and geo-targeted digital ads, you can reach localised audiences and speak to them with messaging and offers tailored to their location. Geo-targeting ensures limited wastage and maximum relevance for a digital campaign.
• On-the-go engagement: Radio and digital (through mobile devices) can reach people on the move, allowing you to engage with consumers in the moments that matter.
We're living in a world of converged media, where TV, radio, social media, mobile phones and the Web can no longer be treated as separate entities. They are accessed through different devices and for different purposes, and are perhaps used at different times of the day, but they're part of an interconnected fabric in the consumer's life.
A holistic strategy that takes advantage of their strengths can lead to better reach as well as higher levels of brand awareness and customer acquisition. To fully cost radio and get the most value from it, you need a social media and digital component. You should look at media buys that allow you to jointly plan and strategise campaigns across broadcast and online channels for the best results.
