Reverse Engineer Your Digital Strategy

I recently attended the Podcast Movement 2021 conference here in Nashville, TN. Many of you reading this right now could have been presenters. Not because of your vast amounts of podcasting experience, but because of the timeless tactics and strategies you’ve used to be the best broadcasters and communicators.

Fundraising, increased time spent listening, editing (less is more), advertising, testing, partnerships and more were all topics that newbie podcasters copiously took notes on.

This reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” In our case, “Digital imitates radio far more than radio imitates life digital.”

How you daily connect and bring value to your listeners on-air can be transformed and translated to digital. The parallels between digital and radio are fun to compare and can be reverse engineered to accomplish your goals.

Let’s take one example. The classic radio prize wheel and booth setup at the state fair! We’ve all done it!

Goals for attending the state fair:

1. Gain awareness with new listeners in our demographic.
2. Give out bumper stickers so listeners can show their affinity towards our station.
3. Connect with listeners.
4. Prize giveaways to grow our database.

Now let’s compare this with social media.

Goals for creating and maintaining a social media strategy:

1. Gain awareness with new listeners in our demographic.
2. Enable listeners to “share” their affinity towards our station and content
3. Connect (comment and engage) with listeners.
4. Prize giveaways to grow our following, likes and database.

You are now probably saying to yourself, “Yeah, this is obvious Matt, but our ROI and engagement on Facebook continues to decline faster than christian bookstores!”

It’s time to get really practical and share one last parallel between digital and your radio station.

But first, what are the goals of Facebook?
Divide America? No.
Make Money? Yes!

What are your goals for being on Facebook?

Some of us find a strange and odd enjoyment in chasing the elusive “Facebook Algorithm” changes to maintain our social media strategy effectiveness. Is this giving you a clear ROI for your efforts?

Again, what are your goals for being on Facebook? More time spent listening, app installs, new listeners, conversions (aka: donations), engagement with listeners? Most of these goals can be clearly achieved if you help Facebook achieve their goal of making money. It’s called Paid Social Media.

Here are the key objectives you can achieve when you fork over a little money to Facebook.

We’ve all run, or seen radio billboard campaigns! (“God Listens” comes to mind)

Let’s transform the billboard/outdoor display strategy to digital!

Step 1:

1. Repurpose your creative for Facebook Ads
2. Target your demo based on zip code, age, and interests.
3. Run your digital ads 1 hour before drive-times and during drive-times to increase the likelihood you get people sampling your station to and from work. (Yes, people check their phones while driving. I, however, only check at stop-lights!)

So many of the strategies you use today and in the past simply need to be transformed and translated into a digital strategy. If you’d like to help and someone to brainstorm with, I’d love to connect with you at www.mattmundt.com.