Site to be used on BBC Watchdog

What sort of traffic can we expect?

[GodLikeLotus]

Our site is to be featured on BBC's Watchdog programme (Tuesday 25th Feb at 7:00pm), what sort of traffic can we expect?

[TallTroll]

In a good way, I hope...

[adamcmoran]

As Talltroll says, I hope it is for good reasons, you may get lots of visitors to your site, but what it really comes down to is the quality of them. I good way of raising awareness of your company though.

[engine]

Think about the long-term traffic. Most BBC shows have a transcript on the bbc site, along with links from the show's page.

[cornwall]

I may be wrong, but the answer is probably less than you might think

I was featured on to BBC news in a fairly high profile way (and good way!) a while ago. I was concerned about bandwidth problems, but although traffic was up, it was nowhere like even double.

A recent feature on Daily Telegraph web site brought a grand total of about 15 on the click through - makes you wonder!

[tbear]

A site of mine was featured twice in the 'Sunday Times' (in a good way) - on both occasions site traffic doubled and gave a big increase in sales.

[SlyGuy]

A site of mine was featured on MuchMusic (the Canadian equivalent of MTV) and the 60 second spot produced about 3,000 unique visitors in 3 minutes.

Good luck.

- Chad

[rcjordan]

One of my sites was listed on the "Find Out More" section of History Channel's [historyinternational.com...]

It was good for about 500 referrals in 10 minutes.

[cornwall]

Our site is to be featured on BBC's Watchdog programme (Tuesday 25th Feb at 7:00pm), what sort of traffic can we expect?

So....what was the answer, how many visits have you got as a result of the programme?

[sem4u]

I used to work for a media buying agency (newspaper and TV).
One of their clients was 'featured' on Watchdog last night!

[GodLikeLotus]

The film that BBC Watchdog was going to show was pulled 2 hours before it was due to go out live, nobody is prepared to say why. Just that it may go out next week.

[GodLikeLotus]

Watchdog report into our topic/subject is going out in 30 mins, will let you guys know what effect this has on traffic.

[rcjordan]

GLL, have you notified your hosting/server techs? If not, I suggest doing so. It's been my experience that they have an uncanny 6th sense that compels them to take the hard-drive out for its annual bath and rinse right when you make press.

Break a leg.

[edited by: rcjordan at 1:49 pm (utc) on Mar. 5, 2003]

[tosspot17]

One of our sites got features in the Sun newspaper today, so far we have had a 300% increase in traffic, and it's only just past lunch!

woohoo!

[George]

tosspot17,
300% on what though?
GodLikeLotus...
Did it have an impact?

I have nearly always been disappointed with offline media, it can be hard work to get the sales, but great when you hit a rich vein. But where are those veins?

George

[tosspot17]

The site featured is relatively new, and was pulling in around 50 uniques a day, this shot up to over 500 on the day of the article, 300 the day after, then 200 and it's been around 100 or so since.

The number of enquiries has bave been good too (hard to keep up with the demand), and the conversion rate has been alot higher than normal.

We hired a PR company to do this for us, and it has worked wonders (it had to the amount they charged!).

In my industry, it is essential to get good brand reognition, and it was fantastic exposure for us.

[daamsie]

Our site was featured on BBC World's 'ClickOnline' program which screens 7 times a week at different hours.. We noticed a fairly dramatic rise (although not 200%) over that week and had approximately 150 extra members sign up because of it. I would estimate 1500 extra unique visits in total came during that week, but since then we have been having a higher number of hits also. Print mentions seem to have far less impact - mentions in the Sydney Morning Herald and Washington Post didn't see a significant boost that I could tell - although there was a slightly higher visit rate. Probably would depend on what page the mention is made on though.

t's been my experience that they have an uncanny 6th sense that compels them to take the hard-drive out for its annual bath and rinse right when you make press

Hear, hear! I have had that EXACT experience.. well, maybe not exact (they didn't actually put it in a bath :) ), but they did manage to take my site off for almost 12 hours just when we were on telly. Definately would be worth notifying your host if they have a history of unreliability.. probably worth moving hosts too actually

[George]

Intresting, thanks for sharing that.

For me, being in my Local paper (Local City) was worthless, but being in the Daily Mail (UK) brought a measurable amount of traffic, about in the order of what you found.

The Daily Telegraph web site listings (in print) have been next to worthless (sales seem the same with or without it too).

However, I once had a featured article for one of my products, again in a national...and it was seasonal...

Wow, I sold over 200 Turkeys extra!
(Oops, did not mean to give specifics!)
George

[GodLikeLotus]

The Watchdog programme did not show our web site on the programme, not yet found out why as the reporter we dealt with phoned 2 hours before the programme went out. They have put a link on the Watchdog section of the BBC site but this is worth very little traffic. We are running a series of ads in HELLO magazine in their "Web Windows" section but after 2 of our ads having already been run, nothing of any interest to report. I would agree that it seems very difficult to advertise in traditional papers and magazines and get any significant results for the outragous prices they charge. You only have to look at the Sundays Times, they used to have a seperate internet section called "Doors" but this has gone and they have a little section in the "Culture Mag" TV guide, almost nothing left.

[George]

Sorry to hear that GodLikeLotus. Better luck next time!

George