The Infinite Dial

A while back, Fred Jacobs posted an article on his blog about the importance of station email databases. I couldn't agree more--building a relationship with listeners is crucial. Of course, this particular resource is not a "secret weapon" or unique selling proposition for radio--scads of online radio competitors also have databases, and many use them quite well indeed. That makes radio's efforts in this realm all the more crucial, since the barriers to entry for building an online community are quite small--look at MySpace--but the rewards are immense.

Some radio stations do a fantastic job building and maintaining their database. For example, a few months ago Edison published the most recent results of our yearly survey of Country partisans for the Country Radio Broadcasters annual CRS show. The sample for this survey comes directly from radio station databases, and despite the fact that we only added a couple of new stations to the survey this year, the response rate nearly tripled--from 11,000 in 2005 to about 30,000 this year. Yes, there was certainly same-station growth for these databases, but that alone cannot explain our surge in responses. Some of the credit also has to go to the individual stations--and how much lovin' they give their database listeners.

If listeners gain no positive value from inclusion on a radio station database, they are pretty unlikely to "answer the call" and help the station out by completing a reasonably lengthy online survey. As we watched the returns every day at Edison Master Control, we could tell very quickly which stations were doing a great job and which ones have an opportunity to improve their EMail marketing efforts. For example, WCOL in Columbus blew us away with the turnout and passion of their email database. Though Columbus is market #38 in Arbitron, they pulled in 2-3 times more respondents in the first 24 hours than some larger market stations did in a week. I talked to John Crenshaw, WCOL's PD, about this, and his advice was pretty straightforward--"we really do go out of our way to only send email of value." Clearly, for this Clear Channel property, "less is more" does not only apply to spotload.

We are all inundated with SPAM--I run my email through my GMail account just to tap into their awesome SPAM filtering algorithm, and I am frightened to report that I typically get between 3 and 4 thousand SPAM emails a month. If I am going to sign up for a radio station's website, there had better be a crystal clear value proposition for me. "We Want To Hear Your Voice" is just not strong enough, neither is "keep up to date with all our promotions/contests/etc." Offering me pre-sale opportunities to buy concert tickets is of some value, certainly, and that sort of thing is a great start. But think about all the ways you can add value to your listeners' lives, whether related to the format/station or not. Do make sure that you have, in fact, provided value over time before you ask your listeners to reciprocate. I can only assume that WCOL's high response rate is due to the fact that the station does not abuse their database, and that their mailings are welcomed, not immediately turfed, because they do in fact provide value that is tangible and appreciated.

The best analogy is to think of your emails as a date. Does your station send flowers and candy? Offer to meet her mother? Pick up her dry cleaning? Or do you just drop by at 2 am, possibly drunk, and forget to flush?