Tag Archive for: Radio

Turbocharging Your Growth in 2022 NAB Show Preview

Turbocharging Your Growth in 2022: NAB Show Preview

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Get the most out of this year’s NAB Show whether you are on-site or online!

Watch NAB’s Director, Member Experience Josh Miely and Futuri’s SVP Content Zena Burns discuss what Radio Show’s integration into NAB Show means and the best way to navigate the new and improved convention center experience. Not going to the show? They also discuss how you can take advantage of NAB Show’s on-demand content to educate yourself and your team. Even if you won’t be waking up in Vegas for this event, there’s so much you can get out of its programming and education to help you drive audience and revenue growth this year.

Don’t forget to share this video with your friends and co-workers attending the show.

Turbocharging Your Growth in 2022 NAB Show Preview

Going to NAB Show? New approaches to audience and revenue growth are critical to survive 2022’s competitive landscape. Click here to connect with Futuri at NAB Show 2022 and learn about the tools you need to thrive.

hitting a bullseye with prospects

Prospect Conversions – Don’t Sell Yourself Short

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At the beginning of each year, we think about improving ourselves. Some make resolutions while others pick up a new planner or organizational tool for work or personal life. Many find themselves reading a self-help book, like Stephen Covey’s timeless classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey wrote that one should seek first to understand, then to be understood. A straightforward tip that’s helpful in one’s personal life and an essential strategy for sales professionals. In our recent webinar, The Broadcast Sales Executive’s Guide to Crushing It in 2022, what we covered is a living example of Covey’s game-winning strategy. Especially for Account Executives and Sales Managers seeking to increase prospect conversions and get more out of their biggest clients.

Walk a Mile in The Prospect’s Shoes

Many SDRs arm themselves with a well-crafted value proposition and create a plan for how they’ll woo the prospect or client into understanding why they should be buying what they’re selling. This is the classic goal-driven best practice for creating a sales pitch. It’s also in need of an overhaul.  

What if, instead of creating your plan based on wanting the customer to understand the value of your product, you took a step back, took some time to get to know your prospects and clients? This sounds easier said than done. How would you do it, and where would you start?

Thankfully, there are tools that can help you understand your clients better. Having a true sense of a prospect or client’s personality is essential. It’s cornerstone of how you’ll tell the story about your product fulfilling their needs. 

At Futuri, we specialize in providing account executives and sales managers with a sales intelligence tool designed to convert prospects while shortening the sales cycle so you can close more deals. TopLine was created to help your sales team understand prospects and clients better on a more personal level and keep you up to speed on the most important news in your client’s industry and help create rock star sales presentations. 

The Right Tools for the Right Job

TopLine equips you to speak the lingo of their industry so you can communicate like an expert in their business category. TopLine Individual Personality Profiles are the secret tools in your arsenal. They help you prepare for the meeting, craft the perfect email, or make a warm phone call. Prospects and clients will remember the connection you made. 

TopLine’s Business Acumen and Instant Insights help you connect in more meaningful and relevant ways. When you sound knowledgeable about what’s happening in their business and use the same terminology and catchphrases, you grow trust. A significant factor in getting the sale.

A great way to glimpse how TopLine can help you identify prospects is our weekly Top 3 Categories infographic, posted every Monday on our LinkedIn page. You’ll see the category, why we think it’s an excellent prospecting opportunity, data to back it up, and prospecting questions to kick start your creative approach. It’s 100% free and clear for you to use when you follow Futuri on LinkedIn.   

We created these features in TopLine for every seller who has experienced that moment in a meeting when your prospect or client seemed to be keeping your ideas and product at arm’s length while they struggled to see how it could help their business. 

That’s where TopLine starts. Our entire suite of features, including meeting prep, client research, custom-built presentations, co-op reports, and TopLine’s newly added client Digital Analysis reports, all come together in a single sales intelligence platform. 

We’ll help you walk a mile in their shoes, help you understand why they bought them, and make them excited to buy another pair from you.

Cut to the Front of the Line

If you’re ready to take the next step and learn how TopLine can maximize prospect conversions, grow your client list, land more new business all while shortening your sales cycle, send us a note, and we’ll be in touch soon.

In the meantime, you can check out our recent webinar here.  

From all of us at Futuri, here’s to crushing your sales goals in 2022!

Futuri Launches TopicPulse SportsEdge, AI-Driven Story Discovery for the Growing eSports and Betting Space

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Futuri officially announces TopicPulse SportsEdge, AI-driven audience engagement and sales intelligence solutions for broadcasters and publishers that is customized for eSports, betting, VR, and fantasy content.

 

TopicPulse SportsEdge empowers news media and content creators who cover eSports, betting, fantasy sports, and VR content by providing 24/7 access to insights on the sports-related stories and topics audiences are talking about right now, what’s losing traction, and what engaging stories they can cover before their competition. It’s an evolution of the TopicPulse system used by thousands of radio and TV content creators nationwide.

 

TopicPulse SportsEdge insights provide a content compass for articles, video script content, social posts, and even marketing decisions. Its IdeaStarters™ content delivers pre-written copy points on the day’s top stories for use in blogs, social posts, and on-air copy. And its companion Instant Video product delivers dozens of fully licensed short videos daily that can be easily branded, customized, and used on websites, apps, and social platforms.

 

The eSports, betting, VR, and fantasy content has never been more lucrative for content creators. Our recent study The Future of Audience and Revenue 2021, done in partnership with research firm SmithGeiger, revealed new insights on the growth opportunity sports, eSports, and sports betting content represent. Of the more than 2,000 U.S. consumers surveyed:

 

  • 92% of sports and sports betting fans go to a local news program on TV for information on their favorite sports, teams, and athletes.

 

  • 90% of sports and sports betting fan go to a local news website and/or a local news app for that content.

 

  • 61.5% bet on sports, with 32.5% betting on both regular-season games and playoffs, and 29% betting on big events like the Super Bowl and March Madness.

 

  • 36.5% would be more likely to watch a local news program if they included sports betting information in their content.

 

The market for esports and sports betting is poised to explode. If you’re ready to get in on the excitement and this software sounds like it’s right for you, visit TopicPulseSportsEdge.com.

Build a Better Broadcast

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With the rise of listeners consuming more content through devices other than their traditional AM/FM dials, your radio station is going to need to figure out how to keep engaging audiences in the increasingly competitive market you may find yourself working in.

 

As if you didn’t already know the unique challenges that your media brand is facing and weren’t constantly looking for new solutions and approaches to the behemoth competition you face every day!

 

Well, it sounds like your station is going to need to build a better broadcast! One that the modern audience not only tolerates but embraces.

 

At Futuri, we recently partnered again with our colleagues at Nielsen in order to learn more about how our POST’s audio solutions can help your station achieve success by taking an on-demand broadcast audio (ODBA) approach to radio in today’s cutthroat media market.

 

In fact, we even produced a study on ODBA with Nielsen that you can download with all the nitty-gritty on how POST’s proprietary and unique interface, integration into broadcast audio systems, and integration into social and digital platforms yields uniquely positive results compared to other systems and approaches to ODBA.

 

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

 

While you could read up on why ODBA is a game-changing solution for your station’s success, you probably already have a lot of questions about how producing ODBA isn’t just extra busywork where you’re reproducing what you already do well with traditional broadcast mediums.

 

Maybe it sounds like producing time-shifted content is just a matter of reinventing the wheel. You may feel like you can only take a new approach to content, thinking you can only be a successful radio executive or a really great director of a podcast syndicate network.

 

With POST’s audio solutions, you can have it both ways!

 

Don’t get trapped in an either/or mindset. When your station adopts an ODBA approach to success, you can be both a successful media executive and a superb podcast producer all in the same day.

Don’t Go Back to the Drawing Board

 

You’re probably tired of always going back to the drawing board, trying to come up with a new solution to all the problems your station is finding itself in.

 

However, we at Futuri have done all of the research and have developed a proven, patented product that will be a game-changer for how your station can adopt an OBDA solution to the issues currently facing the radio industry.

 

Futuri’s POST audio solutions serve as a highly effective way to edit, package, and publish your station’s content and engage audiences with your brand across multiple platforms. POST will help your station get more people involved with your brand and increase your station’s ROI — all without having to add a whole department’s worth of staff!

 

With a solution like this, why would you ever want to go back to the drawing board when trying to come up with a plan for how to adopt an ODBA approach to success for your brand?

The Blueprint for Success

 

Lucky for media executives like you, we at Futuri developed the blueprint for success and put it to work with our now-patented POST production/on-demand system so that you too can start building in the neighborhood of on-demand broadcast audio.

I would encourage you to check out this blueprint so that you can know how to best achieve success with an ODBA approach at your highly regarded media company.

TopLine Business Acumen Series Digest: November 8, 2021 Edition

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This week: Back to school opportunities, hair wellness takes off, rise in interest in auto sales, how mortgage lenders and real estate agents must set themselves apart, and more.

Read more

Where did all my listeners go?

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At Futuri, we recently partnered with Nielsen to produce yet another study on the Growing Audience with On-Demand Broadcast Audio study. After a quick two year break, we are back after a raging pandemic with updated information on why on-demand broadcast audio is a prime opportunity for your radio station even more now that it already was back in 2019.

The traditional media landscape in radio has been shaken up pretty good lately. High-quality competitors are around every degree of the radio dial – if you still have one of those analog ones! Consumers now want more digital and social content in terms of radio. Now listeners are listening around the clock at any given time of the day and not just during the typical morning and evening hours.

With our new study we produced with Nielsen, you’re definitely going to learn some new things about why On-Demand Broadcast Audio is hugely important for your brand and we’ll even offer some suggestions for how you can break into this new, exciting opportunity for your brand.

It’s Not Them. It’s You.

Sounds great! But where’s the catch?

You’re right. If creating time-shifted content was easy, everybody would be doing it. However, that is not the case.

Americans are now willing to pay around $40 or $50 per month for subscription streaming services, so that means that if your station just keeps producing a bunch of middle bar level content, then that’s not going to cut it any longer. People are willing to pay for quality and don’t just want to turn on the free radio dial any more.

Also, with less people commuting and more people still working from home, traditional radio has taken a serious hit. Add to that the fact that most people’s audio speakers at home don’t come with built-in AM/FM receivers. They’re connecting those devices to their favorite streaming services and not giving an ounce of thought to radio at that point.

How to Win Them Back

With all the listeners leaving their traditional AM/FM dials for streaming services, your media brand is going to need a solution fast to help you implement more on-demand broadcast audio.

Luckily, we at Futuri have a solution called POST that can help your station publish shows in a podcast format across multiple platforms.

Instead of starting from scratch, with POST your existing content can be repurposed from what would be listened to by audiences on the way to work into content they can listen to while working from home or while making dinner in the evening.

With POST, your station can measure up to the competitors in the battle to have the best premium content. In fact, stations using POST were over 5x more likely than non-POST stations to have on-demand PPM broadcast audio minutes captured by Nielsen.

Also, listeners don’t just want original podcasts. They actually want on-demand channels where they are still interacting with their favorite on-air personalities in a time-shifted format, not just a bunch of random podcasts completely separate from everything else going on at the station. POST can help in this area tremendously.

Baby, Come Back

With POST, you’ll never find yourself having to beg lost listeners to come back on board.

POST’s unique, patented technology, specifically designed for easy, fast, and efficient editing, packaging, and publishing, can help stations capture opportunities uncovered in our research with SmithGeiger Group and validated in our studies with Nielsen, without needing to add a new department’s worth of new staff.

Please visit futurimedia.com/podcast21 for the full study and to register for our November 11th webinate. 

Good Morning, New Normal!

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In the last eighteen months, media consumers’ habits have shifted greatly. This has impacted so many parts of their lives from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep. Major disruptions to everyone’s lives such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the related reordering of how we do things have changed our morning routines and media habits greatly.

 

What does this mean for your media company, radio or television company?

 

Thankfully, the new Future of Audience and Revenue Study from Futuri and our partners at SmithGeiger unveiled a lot of information about today’s media consumers and how you can advertise and market to listeners and viewers better.

 

With this white paper, you will be feeling like you have a new morning routine so that your company can wake up to success at work every morning in this new normal we currently find ourselves in. 

 

The New Morning Routine for Your Media Brand

Make your brand more than just a show: think omnichannel!

 

Just think of all the different things you have to do in order to get ready in the morning.

 

Similarly, media consumers are always doing a variety of different things and interacting with different media devices and ways of interacting with your company’s brand!

 

For example, morning shows can use social media such as Facebook to interact with their viewers as soon as they wake up and check their phones. Or perhaps they could post in the afternoon to show their audiences what their hosts are working on in the afternoon to get ready for the next day’s show!

 

Today’s successful media brands – morning show or not – take an omnichannel approach with different options such as videos, podcasts, blogs, websites, social media, and mobile apps in order to achieve highly in competitive markets.

 

In fact, Futuri offers some solutions that your company can use in order to take an omnichannel approach to engaging with your audience. 

 

POST by Futuri is the podcasting, audio on-demand, and video system that maximizes your content ROI.

 

Futuri Mobile offers apps that are customizable, engaging, and highly monetizable.

 

Location, location, location: use localized content to give your listener context

 

Consumers don’t want to listen to talk about the same old shows as their Aunt Irma in Missouri or their cousins watch in Iowa.

 

Listeners want local content about what is happening in their area. They want to hear about the unusual happenings, business activities, or local media production in their area, not necessarily what happened on The Bachelor or some other national show that aired the night before.

 

Leaning into local content isn’t just something nice you should do in order to appease your audience’s preferences.

 

The Future of Audience and Revenue Report found that consumers are becoming more willing to pay for local information from digital publishers, and they’re already dwelling to pay for audio and video subscriptions for that localized content.

 

This could mean huge gains for your media company if you adopt this localized content strategy that the study is suggesting.

 

Wake up to the potential for serious revenue growth and increased ROI

 

Wake up and watch the sunrise full of new opportunities. In particular, the sun is shining bright rays of revenue in terms of media consumers’ newly demonstrated activity in the area of paid subscription services.

 

Did you know that for example that The New York Times made more money in subscriptions, rather than advertising, in the year 2020?

 

In fact, people are willing to spend around 40 or 50 dollars per month depending on their age group on streaming video and audio services!

 

Not only are media consumers spending money on subscriptions services, but they are poised to also make major purchases which is great news for advertising.

 

About 41% of media consumers are ready to spend more on travel and vacations. 28% are ready to buy new furniture for their homes.

 

“…But I’m not a morning person!” 

 

Whether or not you’re a media executive involved with morning shows, we’re all finding ourselves waking up to the next normal in the media industry.

 

Be ready for whatever is coming next and equip yourself with the useful knowledge from the recent Future of Audience and Revenue Study that we conducted with our partners at SmithGeiger.

 

Even if you don’t consider yourself a morning person, you will definitely find it useful!

Get Serious Clout with Sports Betting and eSports Audiences

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We are always looking for new ways to help you to engage with your audiences through our POST and TopicPulse lines of products, so when our team heard about the recent rise of sports betting and eSports, we knew it was a huge opportunity and we could help new customers!

 

That’s what led to TopicPulse SportsEdge, a version of our real-time, AI-powered story discovery and social content system customized for eSports, betting, VR, and fantasy content.

 

To show you how powerful SportsEdge could be for our business, let’s unpack some results from The Future of Audience and Revenue 2021, done with SmithGieger. 

 

The Findings and Ways They Can Help YOU!

Demographics of Sports Bettors

 

The recent Futuri + Geiger study shone a light on what kind of people are ready for sports betting to make its way into the mainstream. 7 out of 10 sports bettors are men. Most are employed full-time and earn more than $75,000 each year. About half of all sports bettors are in their mid 20’s to mid 40’s.

 

So what? Why should your media company market to this segment? Are these people really still listening to the radio and watching television if most of their time is spent betting on sports online?

 

Yes, they are! Sports bettors are still using the radio and television, as well as web media just like everyone else. It would be a missed opportunity not to engage with this demographic on these forums. 4 out of 10 sports bettors enjoy listening to sports talk. 1 out of 4 enjoy listening to newscasts.

 

According to the Futuri + SmithGeigerGroup study, half of the survey takers said that they bet on season games, playoffs, and big events like the Super Bowl and March Madness. 4 out of 10 of the survey takers said they would see it as a positive if local news programs were to offer odds, betting lines, and best bets in their sports reports

 

Wouldn’t it be great to engage with sports bettors and always have engaging content to keep them coming back? SportsEdge can help you accomplish exactly that!

 

eSports Viewership on the Rise

Sports betters are a big market, but what about eSports viewers as well? 

 

We can answer that with a resounding YES.

 

The numbers are astounding and represent a wide market: there are slightly more men than women playing video games. 3 out of every 4 children play video games. The median age of the video gamer is 31, so half of all gamers are older than 31 and the other half is younger. Half of all video game players play seven or more hours a week, but still have time for life’s other activities and traditional mainstream media consumption.

 

Best of all, 227 million US consumers played video games in 2021, an increase from the 214 million who played in 2020. Furthermore, there were 26.6 million monthly eSports viewers in the US in 2021. That number is projected to grow to 31.4 million in 2023.

 

That’s a lot of people, but what about the money? There is $1.8 BILLION anticipated eSports revenue by 2022. 69% of this eSports revenue will come from sponsors or ads. Media rights, ticket sales, and merchandise will account for only the other 31% of eSports revenue.

 

Particularly with eSports, there are unique opportunities for advertising such as appealing to a niche audience, but best of all having a large audience for a long time period at a low cost. That sounds like a winning equation to me!

 

With such a growing interest in eSports and revenue to be gained in this area, why would you want your company to get left out of all the action?

Sports Betting and eSports: Key Takeaways

 

Now you know why sports betting and eSports are two key audiences in advertising that need to be capitalized on by your company. 

 

If you’re ready to take advantage of this, we’re ready to help.

 

If you’re read to elevate your game with TopicPulse SportsEdge, visit TopicPulseSportsEdge.com.

How Sports Betting Could Be a Safe Bet for Your Business

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We’re back today with some more insight into what  The Future of Audience and Revenue study from Futuri and SmithGeiger Group uncovered about maximizing your audience for increased revenue. 

 

So far we’ve talked about the ways in which the modern audience has changed, and how your organization can adjust to meet their evolving expectations.If you want to see real results, you’ll need to be prepared to take some risks. 

 

Those risks often mean exploring new markets, and on that note, here’s some advice that you have certainly never heard from your financial advisors: it might be time to go all-in on betting. 

 

We’re not talking about hitting the horse track or pinning it all on a prizefighter. What we are talking about is giving your audience what they want. And the answer to what they want is simple – they want to place some bets. 

 

Weighing the Odds

 

The Futuri x SmithGeiger study found that 72% of its over 2,000 participants that were between the ages of 16 and 74 are still tuning in for the big game, whether they’re watching at their favorite dive bar with friends or at home from the comfort of their own couch. 

 

Once again, locally produced content reigns supreme. 69% of the aforementioned 16-to-74-year-olds keep up with sporting events by accessing a local news site, and 71% tracking results through their preferred source’s app. 

 

Now, consider how those numbers jump for esports and gaming. In 2020, Forbes reported that the gaming industry generated over $120 billion in revenue as opposed to football, which generated only $11 billion. But whether they’re following the score by sitting in front of the big screen, visiting the local news provider’s website, or going straight to the app, the study found that over 90% of respondents are “tuning in.” 

Baseball might be America’s favorite pastime, but for media companies, the game has changed. Some people want to watch baseball. Some people want to watch competitive Farming Simulator. How can you reach them all?

 

Go All-In

With the legalization of sports betting in 2018, betting on sports has become an attractive enterprise. The Futuri x SmithGeiger study discovered that roughly 62% of respondents are willing to bet on sporting events. 

 

The best way to meet their needs, then, is to produce content that caters to that desire. And the easiest way to do this is, once again, to reach them at a local level. 

 

Additionally, 42% of respondents expressed interest in seeing odds and betting lines presented on their local news programs, which is another potential strategic move for your company. 

 

In short, the possibilities are endless. Whether you’re broadcasting expert predictions or hosting radio contests, the “fun” part of betting is feeling like you’re part of the action. The savvy media company needs to be committed to making that desired content readily available to their audience. 

 

What’s the Next Step?

 

If embracing new content seems like a daunting task, remember that you’re not alone. 

 

Futuri’s got your back. 

 

We’re prepared to make your sports betting transition easier if that’s a route you choose to pursue. Our solutions like TopicPulse are set to drive your content to the forefront of your audience’s search. Will you be ready for them?

 

Have more questions? A good place to start would be taking a look a the results of the Futuri x SmithGeiger study to use. I’ll introduce you to some of the tools that can help you grow your content, audience, and revenue. You can learn more about the whitepaper and study right here.

Adjusting to the Expectations of the Modern Audience

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 It’s time to take another look at some of the noteworthy discoveries resulting from The Future of Audience and Revenue study, from Futuri and SmithGeigerGroup. 

In my last post, we introduced you to the key discoveries that came about from this study. Media consumers and their needs are evolving – and if news outlets and content creators want to keep up, we’d better evolve too.

In this post, we’ll be taking a look at what exactly the modern audience expects from their media experience in 2021 and how you can prepare to meet those needs. Don’t worry–these aren’t unattainable goals. They just take a little planning and effort. 

Three Ways to Adjust to the Change in Audience Expectation

Cultivate Trust

What do CNN, PBS, and Newsmax all have in common? Less than 50% of the 2,000+ responders in our study respondents considered these “mainstream” media sources as trustworthy institutions. That number steadily declined along with the age of American media consumers, dropping beneath 25%.

From this, one thing is clear: today’s media consumers are looking for someone they can trust. 

…So where are people looking for content they can trust? We’ve concluded the talking heads at big institutions are out, and local news providers are in.

Find the Right Content

That leads us to another question: how can content creators source new content that’s sure to grab a consumer’s attention?

Futuri’s survey revealed that social media is key. Content creators need to make the most of social media in their bid to reach consumers, and it isn’t enough to rely on rates of usage. We all have that one relative who takes those clickbait articles on Facebook as the gospel truth. This means it’s important to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It’s good news, then, that we’re seeing an increase in the development of tools aimed at making this process faster and easier. Futuri is ready to answer this demand with its AI-driven content discovery tool, TopicPulse. Whether you’re looking to reach audiences through traditional communication methods like radio or television, or producing digital content, TopicPulse provides a platform you can use to get your specific audience just what they’re looking for. This tool lets users sort news from both big studio creators and local producers, ensuring that it meets consumers’ needs across the board.

Social Media is Key

Since the modern audience has changed, content creators need to change the way they reach their audience, too – and there’s no way to do that without embracing social media!

The best way to do this is to be willing to invest in social and digital platforms. This is going to require a lot of hard work and investment, but it will be well worth the effort.

We rolled up our sleeves and really dug into social media for the Future of Audience and Revenue study, so please contact Futuri or visit the study’s page to learn more. 

 

A New Dawn for Media Companies

The days of channel surfing are gone. Audiences know what they want, whether they’re listening to podcasts or streaming their favorite show, and there are a LOT of options.

But fear not! While the breadth of different media channels may seem a little daunting for your company at first, it also presents an opportunity for unprecedented growth. All that’s required is a commitment to finding opportunities for success and being willing to invest in them.

Luckily, Futuri is here to help. From some of the best tools for radio, television, and digital publishers to a deep look at where the future of the industry lies, we’ll support you and your company’s growth.

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Futuri is the leading provider of cloud-based audience engagement software for the enterprise. Brands rely on Futuri to make their content more relevant, accessible, engaging, and results-driven. Founded in 2009, Futuri holds 12 published or pending patents in 151 countries. Named to the Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies for seven consecutive years, Futuri is the only audience engagement platform that includes solutions for sales, marketing, and content teams.