Case Study: Star Radio Group unifies its websites

Star Radio Group matched up all the loose pieces of its four stations to have uniformed platforms to engage listeners.

Like everything else in these fluid times, radio is evolving. Broadcast is no longer the primary outlet that people are consuming audio content; a lot of time is now spent online, and increasingly, on mobile devices.

Star Radio Group - which calls itself Malaysia's fastest growing radio network- had to quickly gain pace with its listeners or risk losing out on the digital broadcast pie.

Star Radio Group was in a position where a lot of broadcasters found themselves at the beginning of the year: its listeners were becoming digitally savvy and advertisers were pressuring the stations for more compelling inventories.

That's when it looked into its websites. SRG's last revamp was three years ago, and in this digital mayhem, three years is eons. However, to its credit, when its respective stations - Red FM, Suria FM, Capital FM and 988 FM - first launched their websites, the group was fairly new to the digital space.

There was ample room for growth and learning, but SRG realised time was of the essence and a revamp of all the stations' websites was ordered.

Content is King

Amphibia Digital was vested the task of creating platforms that delivered a better user experience to both the users and advertisers. The end goal, especially for users, was to increase engagement and interactivity.

With that goal, a  social friendly design became a priority- all four websites adapted a similar look and feel to convey that all the channels were from the same brand. To deliver an interesting and user-friendly experience, it had to take into account how a digital audience should experience radio.

The result gave all four station a clean and sleek appearance while delivering content in a quick bite, featuring slide-out menus that echoes mobile applications.

Because consumers are also constantly on their mobile devices, the design had to be responsive and provide relevant content to hook users' attention immediately.

Arduous Testing and Execution

The websites were launched in March 2013 and took a total of four months to complete. The revamped content maintained its focus on themes that made each individual station a success, but featured improved usability, content quality and visibility.

SRG decided that to best maximise its reach and engagement, the websites had to be integrated with social platforms. Conversation and buzz tactics were used to drive in listeners and build the brands' images.

Along with the new interactivity, the websites also provided branded content and a layout that was friendly for advertisers, providing more pages and various categories to choose from.

SRG disclosed that since the digital space is constantly evolving, its websites will be a constant work in progress with a revisit every two months.

According to Google Analytics and Effective Measure- before and after the revamp results- a comparison indicated a drastic increase of overall interactivity within two months of its launch, reaching between 80% to 140% across all its platforms. Listeners are also spending an average of nine minutes on the site as opposed to its previous two minutes.

For radio, nothing could be better than more listeners.