(By Buzz Knight) I’m just back from my first trip to the beautiful country of Iceland and, just as with previous jaunts across the globe, I thought I would pass along a couple of observations that hopefully prompt discussions with your leadership teams, no matter what size market you operate in. As that annoying travel companion who has to observe human behaviors in these other countries, I can share an insight or two to benefit each of you.
We had various modes of transportation on the trip including our own rental car along with various car services to get us to and fro. In the majority of circumstances, drivers of car services, taxis, or airport shuttles were consuming their favorite personality radio shows on-demand through Spotify.
This was particularly noteworthy in the afternoon when we were often using these services and they were listening to their morning drive shows of choice. The demographics of these drivers were in the 25-40 age range and were all male. These were shows mostly from the day of, although a couple were from the past couple of days.
Is this a function of the large geographic makeup of Iceland or a function of the type of jobs they held? Have these radio stations done a great job of educating their audiences about their on-demand content and its availability? I don’t know, but it was interesting to note the behaviors.
Are you making it easy for your audience to find your on-demand shows? Your audience consumes content from multiple different platforms, including Spotify, and you need to promote that availability with consistency.
Is your on-demand content available on every available platform? I did a quick search of some morning shows on Spotify and many are there with their shows but I was surprised that others were not. Please don’t feel that’s a signal to drive your audience away because I have news for you: they will be using Spotify, Apple, and other platforms anyway.
We are living in a multi-platform environment and you need to be everywhere your audience is.
