Radio group builds coupon site
Company:Long Island Radio Group
Market: Long Island, New York City
Core business: Five radio stations
Interactive sites: Radio sites, YourLI.com and YourLI.weddings.com
Executive: Dave Widner, President
Challenge: Long Island Radio Group, a unique group of six radio stations, serves a top 20 DMA imbedded in a top 20 DMA. Long Island, where the five stations are all located, stretches across 123 miles with a number of local towns that are condensed, urban areas that self-identify as separate communities. The family-owned company had seen double-digit revenue increases for several years until 2003, when revenues started to flattened out. By 2007 the company had embarked on a serious effort to look a new sources of revenues.
A key indicator of what one people wanted as the instant popularity of a half price certificate program, created in a partnership with HalfOffDeals.com, a company with more than 1000 media partnerships. Revenue from the online coupons first trickled in at $2000 a month, and then in December the site sold 1000 certificates. For CEO David Widmer, this was an “aha” moment, proof of concept that the stations could drive online e-commerce sales.
The next step was to convince corporate to change the basic idea of what business they were in and hire a head of interactive. Then the company contracted with Borrell Associates to come up with a new plan, that capitalized on what they knew was a proven market for discounts.
Strategy:
Their plan revolved around a simple premise: develop a standalone site designed to save people money. Along the way the company faced a number of critical decisions:
1. Pureplay versus sub-url
A pureplay fit the new concept that LI was a “consumer delivery business” rather than having each web initiative centered around the radio stations. “Our revenues are 100% derived from advertising and marketing. We are an advertising agency that happens to own media properties.”
2. Choosing a name
Creating an independent brand free of radio, meant creating a domain name strategy that was expandable to more pureplays with the same brand. Like many companies they too the lead from social media like myspace and youtube, and considering myLi, before settling on YourLI.
3. Develop or partner
The choice in 2008 to develop the site meant that the site would have more character and be purely and uniquely local. Ready-to-go templated sites are available now from entities like LocalThunder and Zip2Save. The down-side of “build from scratch” is that it involved multiple vendors designers, and shopping cart systems, and almost a year in development. While Widmer likes the cleaner, unique look and functionally of the site, “If we had to do it over again I’m not sure we would. “ This is a familiar diffictulty; large companies can develop or acquire faster than small ones, so development remains a tricky issue which can usually be applied to only one key are. Choose wisely!
4. Creating internal search
One of the biggest challenges was creating the right interal search taxonomy. “If its difficult to search, if people cannot get what they are looking for, they are not going to stay. We have all been spoiled by Google, you don’t have to spell it right, you can ask questions. Trying to replicate search is not an easy thing to do. It requires a tremendous amount of code. “ Since businesses on the site got both a coupon and optimized page, ultimately the site reverted to using Google’s search, and later upgraded to .. which cost in the $20,000 range but made the site work “as well” as a Google search.
5. Creating a hybrid sales force
LI Radio has four dedicated sales staff trained and paid to sell interactive products first and foremost. This has helped sell the product which has a lower price point, $150 a month. To structure the sales force, they allow all sales reps to sell all products with guidelines to avoid account overlap. This is easier for radio and companies with limited numbers of advertisers, groups with large sales forces and thousands of advertisers spend more on integration. “We don’t prevent anyone from selling anything”
6.Letting go of “extra content to drive traffic” aspirations
Early renditions of the site wasted time on content that was not related to the main goal, saving money. Developers involved in the project were adament on creating news in the channel to drive traffic. Not a good idea.
7. Pricing
The launch proceeded with a 90 day free trial, and is now $150 per client. The low cost has put pressure on COS and the company is now looking at self-serve models.
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Results: Overall the program will be profitable this year, taking into account the portion of interactive department dedicated to the project. About 200 businesses with roughly 2000 locations have posted coupons. The company envisions multiple YourLi sites in the future, and changing its overall brand to li360, which would accommodate multiple brands.
The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and MediaExecsTech, developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine, to showcases perspectives from around the world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.
Keywords
radio, long island, yourli, yourli.com, yourliweddings
