ShareThis
As featured in the January 9, 2009 issue of Radio & Records:
At a time when the radio industry is rising up to face their greatest challenges and embrace their biggest opportunities, R&R celebrates the people and companies innovating new products, programming, technologies, revenue sources, distribution platforms and more.
Driving Advertisers:
Sales Imaging Web Sites Focus on Radio’s Other Customer
The best station Web site in America doesn’t stream, offer a “now playing” button or dish the latest dirt on Britney Spears. TopekaRadioAdvertising.com, a marketing tool for the six-station Cumulus cluster in Topeka, Kan., beat out thousands of traditional programming Web sites late last year to win the best radio Web site in America honor, according to readers of the RAB’s Radio Sales Today.
“When I saw a Web site that took the strength of local radio and drove advertisers, it really jumped out at me.” nominating judge Mel Taylor said.
Developed by Sales Imaging president, Gregg Murray, the concept for the radio vendor’s radio sales websites dates back to 2001. Working at the time as a radio manager, Murray saw business owners and advertisers turning to the Internet for research, leading him to create the first dedicated radio “sales” Web site. “The goal was to feature my stations to local advertisers – not from a programming perspective, but as a marketing tool for the sales department,” he says.
Months later, while sharing his concept at a radio conference, Murray found other managers interested in having him replicate the concept for their stations. Soon after, he launched SalesImaging.com to create and manage sales department Web sites for station clients. To date, the company has produced its radio sales sites in more than 20 U.S. markets.
The sites combine what Murray calls, “a conscious mix of content, design, and ease of use.” He adds, “Creating a B2B Web site is a completely different animal than the normal programming site. There is a sweet spot you have to hit in regard to the content in order to get a potential advertiser to do what you want – to fill out a contact form or call the station to set up a meeting with an account executive.”
Murray says TopekaRadioAdvertising.com has generated more than 100 new business leads annually, with each lead carrying a value of $1,182. Home to six of the market’s top 10-rated stations in the spring 2008 Arbitron, the cluster uses the site to generate new advertising leads by promoting it on-air, displaying banner ads on its programming sites and getting the site to rank high among Google search results.
“The site adds credibility to our sales efforts,” market manager Spike Santee says. “Having a digital media kit and other sales resources for potential advertisers to download and use in their planning efforts sets us apart from our competitors. We look ready for the digital age when we have a digital sales platform.”
Murray says the sites are also used for online meetings with out-of-market decision makers. Each site includes fast-opening flash versions of the station’s media kits, as well as audio introductions for each station. “A sales rep or manager will often just e-mail a copy of their media kit to an advertising prospect, but, at that moment, they’ve lost control of the sales process,” Murray says. “By using their sales Web site, they can invite the prospect online to review that station’s sales materials and begin building a relationship.”
- Written by Julie Gidlow, Radio & Records Magazine
