Promoting Your Online Radio
or Television Station

News

It is important to actively promote your online broadcast station so the listening / viewing audience can be increased. Without any promotional effort, the audience potential will be negligible.

You must consider a variety of concepts to consider for promoting an online broadcast station.

These concepts include:

- Planning the promotion
- Website traffic
- Defining your station genre
- Online communities
- Press releases and journalistic articles
- Online broadcast station directories
- Banner – link exchanges
- Station promotional items
- Keeping your audience loyal
- Audience feedback


Promotion Techniques

There are two techniques to promoting a online broadcast station. The first one is to spend large amounts of money on Internet advertising such as banner placement, or pay per click promotion. However, it is important to realize that spending large amounts of money does not guarantee an increase in your audience potential.

The second technique is to utilize existing resources and your own time. A well thought out promotion plan, in conjunction with a nominal financial budget, can achieve far greater results.

Planning Your Promotion

An outline of your promotional plan should be drafted. This outline will allow you to compare all the individual elements. A final version should be saved and printed to reflect the finished plan. All future revisions should be numbered or dated and kept with the final copy.

The key to achieving results with promoting an online broadcast station is a commitment to following the plan. Sustained results will not occur overnight. It is important to keep a journal and track the results of implementing each element of the promotional plan. Changes to the plan can be made, based on the results. These adjustments will allow you to achieve the desired results.

Track Your Website Traffic

Monitoring the broadcast station's website traffic is very important. This allows the observation of visitor information. Some examples of data that can be retrieved from these observations include: origin of visitors, search engine referrals, links to the website, etc.

This information can provide data on the results of implementing different elements of your promotional plan. If the web host does not provide access to website statistics, you can find these services offered for free on the Internet. An example is http://www.statcounter.com which provides free web traffic data analysis information.

Define Your Station Genre

It is important to define the genre or type of programming that your online broadcast station will use. This will allow you to focus the promotional efforts.

For example, your online broadcast station could have the genre of Country and Western music. This would allow you to focus on associating with that specific genre of music.

This genre can be further narrowed into sub categories. A example of this would be the primary genre of Country and Western music and the sub genre of Classical. The sub genre of Classical – Country and Western would encompass older Country and Western artists such as Hank Williams.

These sub categories can allow the creation of unique niche markets and increase audience potential

Online Communities

You need to research online communities and find ones that match the genre or type of programming that the station uses.

Some examples of online communities include : Forums / Bulletin Boards / IRC chat rooms / webrings.

Prior to posting comments to these online venues, you should carefully review the Acceptable Use Policy. It is important that you present yourself in a positive and professional manner through your interaction with the community.

Resourceful advertising techniques can be used while contributing to these online communities. Station logos or web links to your broadcast station web sites can be included with your contributions to these online communities as long as such activity is permitted.

Another form of online communities are Internet Web Rings. These are websites that link together because of common interests or activities. You can join a existing one or start a new one yourself. An example of an free web ring service is http://www.ezwebring.com.

Press Releases and Journalistic Articles

Press releases and journalistic articles can be written to help promote your Internet broadcast station.

Press releases cover events and activities that are occurring at your online broadcast station. These press releases can be submitted for free, to various portals on the Internet. An example of an online press release submission service is http://www.free-press-release.com.

Press releases should contain three elements :

- The introduction
- The body of the press release
- The closing

You can find additional information regarding the writing of press releases here:

Tips, Guidelines and Templates for Writing and Effective Press Release http://www.nsti.org/press/prtips.html

Elements of an Effective Press Release http://www.netpreneur.org/news/prmachine/pr/default.html

Journalistic articles can be written featuring topics associated with your Internet broadcast station. These journalistic articles can be submitted for free, to various portals on the Internet. An example of an online journalistic article submission service is http://www.ezinearticles.com

Journalistic articles should contain three elements:

- The introduction
- The body of the journalistic article
- The closing or summary

You should also answer the following questions within the journalistic article :

- Who or what the article is about
- Where these events are taking place
- Why the article is being written

You can find additional information regarding the writing of journalistic articles here :

Writing a News Story http://www.mediawareness.ca/english/resources/special_initiatives/toolkit_resources/ tipsheets/writing_news_story.cfm

How to Write a News Story http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/news/write-stories.html

It is important to write quality material for press releases or journalistic articles so that these items are accepted for content submission. Correct spelling and grammar are extremely important. It is recommended that some one review the material prior to submission.

Station Directories

There are specialized online directories for online broadcast stations that allow individual broadcast stations to submit their unique station information.

These directories are the equivalent of search engines designed specifically for online broadcast stations.

Most online station directories sort stations using various criteria.

Examples of common search criteria include: Format / Language / Genre / Location

http://www.comfm.com is a well known online broadcast station directory that allows free station listings.

http://www.scvi.net displays station logos and web address links for online broadcast stations that use the NSV / Theora video format.

Banner – Link Exchange

Numerous web sites allow people to swap website address links or graphic banners for free. You should stay away from link and banner exchange “ farms “. These are websites that contain no relevant information. Such websites provide negligible promotional value.

If you do not have a graphic banner for the broadcast station website, there are sites on the Internet that will allow you to create one at no cost. http://www.bannercreator.nu is a example of a free online banner creation site.

You can also ask associates, family and friends to display your station banner or web link on their websites.

Station Promotional Items

Items can be sold to help promote the online broadcast station.

Examples of such items include:

Hats / Cups / Shirts / Bumper Stickers

There are several Internet businesses that can help you create and sell such promotional items. Cafe Press is a well known example. This business handles the entire process from ordering to production and delivery of ordered items. Cafe Press offers a free basic sales package. More information can be found here : http://www.cafepress.com

Keeping Your Audience Loyal

As you promote your online broadcast station to attract more audience members, you should also provide incentives for the existing audience members to remain loyal.

Community interaction is an excellent method of retaining your current audience members.

Some examples of this include :

- News letters
- Online Chat
- Picture galleries of audience members
- Participatory forums
- Show off listeners locations from around the world

You can find free resources on the net for hosting or providing services for many of these. Frapper is one of many free services that Google offers. This service allows people to pinpoint their geographic location online. You can find more information here: http://www.frappr.com.

Free e-mail accounts can also be offered to audience members. There are Internet business that will allow websites to offer e-mail services to large groups of people. These businesses are able to offer this service for free by using banner type advertising on the mail page. ( This is similar to the advertising found on Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail accounts. ) Everyone.net is a example company that provides free sponsored e-mail service. You can find additional information here: http://www.everyone.net/email_pcs.html.

Audience members can submit “ Shout Outs “ to be included in your station's program rotation. These can be recorded audio or video clips.

Example:

“This is dangerous Dave from Durban – South Africa and you're listening to the best Trance on the net – www.OhMyTrance.com“.

Providing quality web content that is kept current and up to date, is also very important. This is the best incentive to keep audience members coming back.

Feed Back

Audience members and casual website visitors can provide input that can help with adjusting your promotional plan. You can get valuable suggestions and perspectives from outside sources.

Conclusion

Follow through with each element of the promotional plan and track the overall progress. Remember to keep a record of how the promotional plan is implemented as well as tracking the results.

A promotional plan should never be cast in stone. The plan needs to be flexible and have the ability to be changed based on audience participation, feedback and traffic patterns. Having the ability to quickly modify or update the promotional plan is very important.

Listen to your audience members and visitors. Always be willing to consider their suggestion or comments.

Good luck!

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