Personalized, On- and Off-Air: Using Messaging Apps for Radio
Radio is an industry that can see huge benefits by using messaging apps to engage customers, capitalizing on two important trends for today’s customer experience: convenience and personalization.
How does messaging app for radio engagement work? Add extra value to the radio experience and impress customers by offering customers personalized information , like showtimes for a nearby theater after a report about a new movie, and providing users with access to useful information on their own terms , even after the radio show has ended.
With the use case ideas below, we’ll offer inspiration for how messaging apps can take radio customer engagement to the next level – and then show examples from two companies who are already putting our tips into practice.
How To Engage Radio Listeners Using Messaging Apps
1. Personalized On-Demand Updates
Focus on personalization, and give your radio listeners the information they want, when they want it. Use up-to-date tips about speed radars and traffic jams, sourced from listeners, and create on-demand traffic roundups. The announcers promote the phone number for the traffic service on-air and listeners can text the messaging app channel to receive hyper-relevant and personalized information. Whether they’re commuting and want to gauge the best time to leave, or are taking a new route and want to make sure they know about all the speed radars, they can request the information they want directly on WhatsApp, for maximum convenience.
This also works with weather: a radio announcer gives the day’s weather report and mentions that you can text the radio station to receive a 10-day forecast, or to find detailed information about your region. The users can access personalized information whenever they want it. The user sends in the buzzword, and automatically receives an answer with weather details. Before you leave the house, or when planning your weekend, you can send a quick message and get all the info you need to know whether to pack the umbrella or not.
2. On-Air, Off-Air Information
Ever heard something interesting on the radio but then forget it? Or you were really interested in a topic but had to leave in the middle of the radio show? Now, the listener’s favorite parts of the radio program can also be available off-air. The radio announcer simply mentions on-air that more information about a specific news story, an event, weather report, tips and tricks, etc. is available via messaging app. The radio announcer gives a keyword, the user texts the keyword to the radio team, and receives a link to whatever information they desire.
How does it work? Let’s look at a few concrete examples.
- Events : the radio announcer promotes the latest Spiderman movie and wants to offer users more information about the movie and the opportunity to buy tickets. Using the easy MessengerPeople Chatbot Builder, the radio team creates a dialogue where the user texts a keyword and automatically receives a message with information about where it’s showing and links to buy tickets. On the radio, the announcer mentions that you can find out more about Spiderman 10 by sending the word spiderman via messaging app. Users receive helpful information, with minimal effort!
- After a news story , the announcers can give a keyword in case the user wants to receive an in-depth article via WhatsApp. This not only helps your information reach your users better, but it also makes the information more shareable!
- Do something fun and offer users horoscopes via messaging app! The zodiac signs can be the buzzwords, and you can create new horoscopes weekly or monthly.
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Real-Life Messaging App for Radio Use Cases
DuMont: Music & Traffic
The radio giant DuMont uses WhatsApp for 7 different radio stations in Germany, including Cologne and Bonn. With practical use cases that help customers get specific information exactly when they want it, these radio stations can integrate themselves better into listeners lives via WhatsApp. Users can send song requests or write to the radio team with feedback or questions. Often on the show they ask specific questions and prompt a WhatsApp response, really raising engagement and interest. They also use the traffic information use case: listeners write to the radio station to provide information about traffic jams, accidents or roadwork, or speed radars, providing user-sourced information that the radio can use to make its programming better. Users can even send audio messages! They are creating a Chatbot that will then automatically send this information to users who ask about the traffic conditions on certain routes.
Quipp: Quiz Engagement
Quipp is an app from the television station Pro7, which also produces a variety of different media formats. With Quipp, users can take part in a live quiz in the app each evening and potentially win big! In order to raise engagement and interest among users, Quipp now has a WhatsApp training mode — a Quizbot on their WhatsApp channel lets users train for the quiz throughout the day, with multiple choice questions. The Bot’s friendly tone makes the quizzes entertaining and they even offer a reminder to ensure that users don’t miss the nightly quiz. When users get the answer wrong, they can try again to make sure that the quiz helps them prepare for the quiz.
Businesses in all industries would do well to start offering messaging app customer communication – not only radio, but e-commerce and retail, airlines and travel agencies, utility companies, banks, or media companies. 70% of customers prefer messaging businesses to calling . You don’t want your company to be left behind. For radio, focusing on the engagement potential of messaging apps allows you to become more relevant in your listeners’ lives and offer them more personalized, convenient content.
To learn more about how to harness the potential that WhatsApp and Co. offer, take a look at our upcoming webinars:
