I get asked quite a bit about radio. Would it be a good medium to advertise a cosmetic dental or medical practice? My answer is always the same, that as a mass medium, radio will be successful as a branding medium (first and foremost) with proper saturation and yield call to action results if you can afford to sustain a substantial campaign over a long period of time. However, radio can offer us an important and more basic concept if you look into Cume.
Cume is a radio term meaning "cumulative audience." It is a measurement of the total number of unique listeners a station measures over a given period of time. So how does this concept extend to marketing your practice? It is pretty easy when you consider the station that you are programming is your web site.
What you do with your web site is exactly what radio stations do to attract listeners. You put up programming and promote it for an audience. However, the big mistake most make is that they remain one-dimensional in trying to drive web site Cume.
Have you ever wondered how people find radio stations they like? How do you do it? Is it word of mouth? How about an ad you saw for the format or a show you wanted to hear? Yet, somehow radio stations find their audiences. Web sites can be the same but you can’t exist in a vacuum or bank on one strategy. And, to be successful, you have to drive Cume.
Radio stations drive Cume in a number of different ways. Of course they advertise and cross-promote but one of the biggest drivers of Cume in some markets can be remote broadcasts. This is when the station broadcasts from a location where station personnel and promotions can interact with the listening audience or introduce themselves to new listeners. In other words, it breaks the mold. It is a way to “see” radio. So, you see, Cume can be generated by applying outside the box thinking. Hosting events and being visible in the public also drives radio Cume. It is the reason why stations do major promotions during sweeps (or rating measurement periods) and it is a great lesson for other businesses. Cume drives brand awareness. Cume plus brand awareness creates trust and trust leads to purchases. The same works for your practices. Only, most miss the part about driving Cume. Instead, the focus on less relevant marketing goals which are usually short-sighted. The need for short-term results thus undercuts your ability to build up Cume over time. In my coaching program, we focus on both short- and long-term goals for just this reason.
Since your medium is not entertainment and your subject matter is pretty specific, you have to make some adjustments but the concept is the same. You should be making multiple, varied efforts to drive traffic (or cumulative audience) to your web site. And, you should make regular, interesting and relevant content updates to your site. Making your site fresh with new information, video or other content will cause patronage that is similar to the effect you get with radio Cume.
In my coaching program, I frequently have clients set up multiple strategies to drive traffic to their web sites. Some strategies drive new traffic; some drive existing contacts back to the web site. Some are designed even to assist in networking. And, all mass media advertising has some web tie-in. Why? We are trying to drive the cosmetic niche version of Cume.
So,what do you need to do to drive Cume in your web site marketing? Create multiple strategies and make significant changes in your content. There are easy ways to do this. If you want to drive Cume, my coaching program probably has the guidelines you need. Just email me at donald@dogstarmedia.com for more information.
