Playbook
Radio Text Messaging
Text messaging can bolster your radio station’s connection with listeners.
This guide will show you how your hosts can use SMS to drive engagement, loyalty, and sales through the roof.
The strategies we cover can apply to radio stations of all sizes, but we do have ones with multiple shows and hosts in mind.
3 Things Your Radio Station Needs Before You Start Texting
1. A list of listeners to contact.
You can only text listeners for updates, promotions, and events if you have their phone numbers. Grab those numbers from your existing database and put them into a spreadsheet to upload into Text Request.
Organize this spreadsheet by:
Cell phone numbers in column A
Listener names in column B
If you don’t know which of your listeners’ numbers are cell phone vs. landline numbers, our Text Request support team can clean landline numbers from your list, so you know who you should actually be texting.
We’ll cover what all you can text your listeners for later.
2. A tech stack for organizing your marketing efforts.
Having the right software will make all your radio station’s marketing easy. Here are the tools we recommend for keeping in touch with listeners:
HubSpot: Everything you need for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service in one place
Constant Contact and Mailchimp: User-friendly email marketing services
Zapier: Creates automations based on a listener’s behavior, like when they interact with an event form on your website
We have integrations with each of these software, so you can mesh your text messaging strategies with them.
3. Defined communication roles.
Business texting can boost listener engagement, but you need to know who at your station will use it as a communication channel and when.
Consider the people who are in charge of marketing and promotions—they’ll want to add text messaging to their toolkit. Your hosts and the people who man the phones while you’re on air will also need to be business texting savvy, so they can navigate incoming messages whenever listeners chime in on air.
Having a text line for each host/show plus your marketing department can help you keep conversations organized. We’ll cover all the ways your marketers and hosts can use text messaging next.
8 Ways Radio Stations Boost Engagement and Sales with Text Messaging
1. Make your current number textable.
Your hosts have most likely been advertising “call us at this phone number” for years, and you don’t want to suddenly switch that up on listeners by adding a new text number. Make your current phone number textable, so people can send you messages with the same number they’re already used to calling.
This saves you the hassle of updating all your station’s marketing collateral with a brand new number, plus your current number’s voice services won’t be affected.
2. Tell listeners they can text into your shows.
Now that your existing phone number is textable, you need to get the word out to folks, so they feel encouraged to send you messages or song requests. Advertise that people can “call or text into the show” on your:
Website
Social media
Physical ads
Digital ads
On air during the show itself
Listeners who want to chime in, but don’t necessarily want to speak aloud on air, will love having this option. Once this new group of listeners start texting into your show, you’ll reach a whole new level of engagement and loyalty.
Text messaging is a great way to encourage listeners to share song requests, add to discussions with hosts, or participate in contests or fundraising. More on all that next.
3. Acknowledge loyal listeners on air using their text history.
You build loyalty with listeners by acknowledging them. Text Request makes it easy to sort and find a contact’s message history, so your hosts can address previous times they’ve tuned into the show. This encourages listeners not only to tune in more, but also to contribute to the conversation ongoing, which boosts your shows’ overall quality.
You can put listeners into Groups based on the shows they regularly text into, plus save contact notes on them based on topics they’re drawn to or have extensive knowledge on. If a brand-new listener texts in, it takes only a few seconds to ask their name and add it to their contact info for future reference.
Hosts will have an easy time viewing both message history and specific contact details about their listeners at the same time. This means more seamless conversations on air, which draws in new listeners while boosting rapport with existing listeners.
4. Advertise events or fundraising opportunities during shows with keywords.
Sometimes your station highlights guests who are trying to raise money for a specific cause, or your station has tickets or contests you want to advertise. In either case, you can encourage listeners to opt in for more information by texting keywords to your station.
Hosts advertise your keywords by saying something like:
“We need help raising [amount] today, text GIVE to [phone number] to donate!”
Or.
“Text EVENT to [phone number] to learn more!”
Once listeners text a keyword—you can have multiple for they are automatically opted into a Group that your station can then tap again and again with further information or payment links.
5. Accept listener donations or payments via text.
Now that listeners have opted in to learn more about your ticket sales or fundraising efforts, you can text message them the actual payment links using Payments.
With Payments, listeners reply to your SMS payment requests with a confirmation code to pay. First-timers are then prompted to put their debit or credit card on file, so the payments process is even smoother the next time you have a sale or fundraising event.
The entire process is secure and painless for your radio station’s listeners.
6. Share reminders to tune in.
Have breaking news or just want to make sure people don’t miss the newest episode? You can send text alerts or reminders for specific shows.
These texts can include direct links to where folks need to go to listen, so they can tune in no matter where they are. This ensures your listener numbers consistently stay high.
Text Request gives you the power to automatically shorten links and track their click rates across your mass texts to listeners.
7. Drive engagement beyond shows with SMS Chat.
Want to encourage listeners to engage with you even when you’re not on air? Invite listeners to reach out with topics, questions, and thoughts they’d like to see explored on your shows with SMS Chat.
SMS Chat is a widget listeners use to text you directly from your website, and can be customized with a call-to-action (CTA), like:
“Text us to join the conversation!”
Any phone numbers that use the SMS Chat will automatically be saved, so you can text them again for future events, contests, or fundraising events. This ease of communication keeps the conversations on your shows going, plus makes listeners feel like they’re connected to you.
8. Request feedback for different shows and hosts.
Keeping a pulse on what listeners are most excited to hear about from your radio station is easy with text messaging.
Use Reviews to create an SMS review campaign for listener feedback. This SMS campaign can be private for your team to use internally, or it can connect your radio station’s Facebook page to get public reviews.
In either case, listeners will receive a text with a custom review link to give you their feedback. From there, your radio station can monitor and respond to oncoming feedback from inside Text Request.
Text messaging is one of the fastest ways to reach your listener base for feedback.
Ready to Give Listeners Your Best with Text Messaging?
Text Request not only makes your current phone number textable, we also provide ongoing training and support to help your radio station get the most out of business text messaging.
Reach out to our team of experts today to learn how we can boost your listen base together!
