Here are two great ways to get more from your Arbitron Hot Zips data, courtesy of the folks at Bonneville’s KIRO Seattle. One trick employs the latest computer technology; the other depends on gas, tires and oil.

The station recently mapped its Hot Zips using the free tools at batchgeo.com. The zips are sorted by the percent of Quarter Hours they provide and identified on an interactive Google map by color-coded drop pins. The map is accompanied by a text ranker of the zips. The batchgeo.com site generates a link that allows station staffers to pull up all that information from any computer or smartphone with a single click. Check out KIRO’s map here.

New KIRO PD Larry Gifford loves those maps but wants his team to have more than a virtual sense of where their audience lives. Shortly after taking the KIRO job Gifford drove the station’s hot zips while listening to his station. He found it a very enlightening experience.

“When you get out from behind the desk and start driving, you realize that [your listeners] are a very different group of people than the people at the radio station. I think it’s very important to see where your listeners live, the types of houses they own, what kind of cars they drive.”

Gifford even took pictures of KIRO’s neighborhoods during his travels and shared them with the programming staff to give them a better sense of who they are talking to.

Such efforts can be very effective. Early in my tenure at WRVA/Richmond, I watched in horror as two recently hired news reporters struggled to find a well-known high school on the huge newsroom map (bomb scare, or something). The next week, we piled the entire news and programming staff – many of whom were new to the market – onto a bus and took a three-hour guided tour of the city. I firmly believe that experience improved our content by familiarizing the staff with the market and, more importantly, sparking a desire to learn more.

By the way, the tour didn’t cost a thing. The bus company did it as a favor to our morning guy who did endorsement spots for them.