This morning, our Business Analyst and former Support Team manager, Shannon Kelley, answers a common question that we hear from clients.
Why has my database participation suddenly slowed/suddenly spiked in activity?
Shannon: Great question! Occasionally, clients will reach out with a concern that their database participation has slowed, or they’ll wonder what caused a spike in interest. Though your database and audience activity should trend toward growth over the course of the year, you will have peaks and valleys over time. A number of these changes can be attributed to what’s going on in your audience’s day-to-day lives.
For example, you may see a lull site traffic in the late summer as people start getting ready to go back-to-school shopping, are traveling on vacation, and are just adjusting to other schedule changes. You might also see activity pick up during certain times of the year when more concerts are in town, or perhaps–especially if you’re a sports station–when your local football, basketball, or baseball teams have games.
Keeping track of your own database’s trends will help you forecast expected participation in future years so that you know when to expect different ebbs and flows of activity. This will help you better pinpoint what’s causing a sudden drop off so that you can put a strategy in place to drive more engagement, or to keep up the momentum and capitalize on those periods of higher activity. I suggest using social media as a means to regularly direct your audience back to your site throughout the year. In fact, we have a great article and webinar with tips for how to do just that.
