Being First With The Best Is WRAL.Com Goal

Your TV station’s website is the most popular in your market. More than half the adults in the region click on it at least once a month. In fact, it’s the second most popular news and information site in the country. It’s also award-winning, recognized numerous times with regional and national Edward R. Murrow awards for Outstanding Website since it was launched in 1996.  

So when you launch the website’s first major redesign in seven years, an eternity in Internet time, how do you market that change to your core constituents and new users?

If you’re WRAL.com, the website of the Capital Broadcasting Co.-owned CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C. (DMA 24), you market it early, methodically and thoroughly.

“When you’re making such a drastic change to a website that’s this popular and used this much,” says Shelly Leslie, WRAL’s creative director, “you need to alert them ahead of the redesign that it’s coming.”

So there were on-air spots launched on WRAL that addressed the changes.

WRAL.com: Usability

WRAL.com: Seamless

WRAL.com: Weather

“Once the redesign was launched,” Leslie says, “we needed step-by-step tutorials of the execution to acquaint users with it.”

So there were video stories that aired within WRAL’s newscasts that walked users through the changes. These videos were then posted on the website itself to further help educate users of the upgrades.

One explained the entire WRAL website redesign story, while another featured WRAL.com’s general manager.

In the initial days after the redesign’s launch, there were full-screen, animated teases within the newscasts to describe the changes and how they worked.

WRAL: Newscast Web Explainer:

When you visit the website itself, there is a 30-step interactive, pop-up tour that demonstrates the different features of the site.

And finally, the press release to publicize the redesign included a link to a blog that featured a video and the major points of what’s new on the site.

So what’s changed? And how did WRAL.com become such a popular site in the first place?

“It has a cleaner, uncluttered look,” says Lisa Jeffries, WRAL.com’s marketing manager and the architect of much of the site’s redesign marketing.

“The level of content hasn’t changed much, but the layout and accessibility is easier,” Jeffries adds

Viewing video, always a prominent feature on the site, has improved. The video player is bigger and better, delivering a higher-quality video viewing experience.

WRAL.com streams all of its newscasts live every day. Weekdays, that’s 8.5 hours of news. In addition, on any given day, the site might stream up to six other live sources as well — school board meetings, legislative committee meetings, trial coverage, news conferences, even raw footage from its chopper.

Why stream all of your news when, according to Conway, only about 10,000 users watch it on-line?

“It’s not about revenue,” Leslie says, “but a brand decision. We want to be wherever our viewers are.”

“WRAL.com wants to be out in front,” says John Conway, general manager of WRAL.com. “We want to be there first and be the best.”

For more details on the technological improvements to WRAL.com, click here.

Market Share by Paul Greeley is all about marketing and promotion at TV stations and appears every Monday. Greeley has more than 20 years of experience in local TV marketing. He’s been a writer, producer, editor, creative services director and VP of marketing for a top-20 broadcast company and has experience in markets large and small. Read other Market Share columns here. If you have some ideas or stories you want to share, please let him know. You can reach Greeley at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.