Whether you are developing a digital strategy for a radio station or paper towels, there are some fundamental questions that should be considered while you create your plan. These are some of the questions we use in consulting media companies who are entering the digital space. Each of these questions can be placed into one of these eight categories: content, community, communication, commerce, monetization, movement, management, and measurement.

Without thoroughly considering and planning for any one of these areas, the digital media strategy of that company may be vulnerable.

Content

• Who is this site targeting? Who is the average user?

• What type of content will be featured on your website?

• Who will be responsible for producing this content?

• How often does content need to be refreshed—and who will be responsible for its implementation?

• Will the content be delivered in the form of text, audio, or video?

• What type of technical platform will this content require?

• Is the content going to be syndicated to iTunes, Shoutcast, AudioRealm, or any other “Internet Yellow Pages” site?

• Will the content require any “RSS” feed functionality? Are you going to share your content with other sites?

• Is any of your content going to be repackaged for e-mail distribution?

• What is the mobile experience of the people who are using your site? Can this site be optimized for all mobile browsers?

• How is the site going to be optimized for search engines?

Community

• Does your site give the audience freedom to establish a community around your content? This may be in the form of “social networking” from forums to comment-posting functionality.

• Does your content lend itself to augmentation from “user generated content?”

• How are you harnessing the traffic on your site? Are you managing a database of users on the site?

• Is there any incentive for your users to communicate with each other on the site?

• Are you maintaining active e-mails as part your user database?

• Can you use Facebook Connect or another community API that will make it easier for people to join your site or social network?

Communication

• How will visitors interact with your brand?

• Do you have a dedicated “Listener Relationship Manager” at the station who’s designated to reply to all general communication that comes into the station?

• Who will be responsible for monitoring Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks for mentions of your brand—and responding to them?

• Do you have a policy for air talent on how quickly listeners should expect a reply to any e-mail or other communication?

• What type of technology will you use to facilitate communication between visitors and your station staff? Are you going to limit communication to e-mail? Or, are chat rooms, instant messengers, and/or “live operator” modules going to be available?

Commerce

There are two sections of this checklist that account for revenue. Commerce is the part of your revenue strategy that accounts for business-to-consumer transactions. This may be in the format of merchandise: t-shirts, hats, concert tickets, etc. It may also be in the form of digital downloads or digital access, such as online classified ads, loyalty clubs, or password protected content.

Some of the questions that must be answered in this portion of the strategy are:

• What type of store front / shopping cart functionality will you need for your site?

• Do you have a merchant account?

• What is your strategy for controlling inventory in your store?

• Who will serve as the customer service representative at your station when a visitor has a problem?

• Are there products that should be promoted on sites outside of your own? (ebay, Amazon, and other online commerce portals?)

Monetization

The second section of this checklist that accounts for revenue is Monetization, which pertains to business-to-business related transactions.

• What exact product will you be selling online?

• Who will sell the product, and what type of training do they require?

• Do we need to recruit someone to lead the interactive/digital media sales efforts?

• What is the revenue potential in this marketplace? (often, we provide this analysis for clients based on regional revenue audits)

• What is the best way for this station’s sales staff to integrate selling interactive—without distracting important attention from the core product (on-air advertising)?

• At what point will your company bring on additional sales resources?

Movement

This portion of the strategy accounts for how you will “traffic” listeners onto and through your website. This includes recruitment of audience onto the site as well as navigation through the site.

• What is your strategy to move visitors onto your website?

• How will you utilize search engines to direct interested customers to your site?

• Has your site been optimized for search engines, and what is your plan to maintain healthy-search-engine-friendly sites?

• What type of on-air cross promotion will be utilized to support the website?

• If you are streaming, are you diligently cross-promoting to your on-air properties? • How will you retain visitors on the site for more than three pages—the average number of pages viewed on any site?

• What information will be stored about your user during each site visit to ensure that they are served the best and most relevant content and/or products?

Management

• Who will lead this initiative inside the radio station?

• Do you have a Content Management System that is accessible to the entire staff, so that content may be manipulated online by anyone?

• What systems do you have in place to traffic your ads?

• Who will manage your streaming technology, and who is responsible for technical problems?

• Who will lead the sales initiative for interactive? (In many cases, it serves radio stations best to have someone other than the GSM responsible for championing interactive sales behind the scenes).

• Have your compensation packages been reconfigured to reward people for action on the digital plan? (without incentive, people are unlikely to give it the attention it needs)

• What type of education, coaching, or internal guidance do you have available for your sales and content teams? How will you help them to transfer their “analog” skills into the digital world?

Measurement

Responsible tracking of your site’s metrics is essential. You will need to have an analytics program such as Google Analytics or WebTrends. These analytics/measurement systems will help you define popular areas of your website, how long visitors are staying and where they are coming from. Remember that streaming measurement is just as important as website measurement; make sure every tune-in or view is counted.

• What metrics program will you use?

• Is it necessary to commission third party audits for this site? (this is dependent on your sales strategy)

• What types of reports will be opened to the sales staff on a regular basis?

• How often will our consultant review the metrics with us to refine our content strategy? (How can our content creators learn from the metrics?)

• Have you set up a system for regular audits of your statistics, so that you can learn from how your audience is using the website?

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