Tag Archives: Social Media

It’s Time to Put Media Use Into Perspective

There is no doubt about the explosive growth of digital. But it still has a long way to go to catch up to radio.

We often hear about fragmentation in radio audiences, with some advertisers complaining about there being too many stations in a market. By the way, these same advertisers would be absolutely delighted if a small fraction of the smallest radio audience in town bought from them tomorrow.

Yet I don’t hear the fragmentation complaint in their lust for all things digital.

According to Pew Research, only 65% of adults use social media networks as opposed to the 90% reached by radio each week. And that 65% is spread over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and hundreds of other social media platforms.

According to Statista, the statistics portal that compiles data from more than 18,000 sources, radio has a daily reach of 59% compared to the internet reaching 49% of adults daily via smartphones, mobile devices, and computers.

Print lags far behind at 13% daily reach; yet, some advertisers are still attracted to this outdated and costly form of advertising.

And talk about fragmentation…at the time of writing, the internet audience was divided among nearly 1 billion websites (985,440,812 to be exact at time of writing). You can see a live running total of the number of active websites at http://www.internetlivestats.com/watch/websites

The dramatic growth of digital is amazing, especially when reported in percentages, because it wasn’t that long ago when the internet was ‘new media’ starting from zero.

But you need to help your prospects and clients understand the undeniable stability of radio’s reach in an increasingly fragmented media world.

It is conceivable that at some point in the future, digital’s reach could equal radio’s, however many platforms that reach might be spread over. But your advertisers need results from their investments NOW and need to invest directly proportionate to current media reach.

P.S. Click here to inquire how our local TOMA surveys consistently prove the results radio produces for local advertisers.

A No-Brainer to Increase Your Sales

Imagine you own a local business, and you have a salesperson who has developed great customer relationships and helped to build your business.

Then picture what you would do if another salesperson offered to join your company and bring with them their great customer relationships and database.

Would you terminate your current sales person in favor of hiring the new sales person, or would you increase your sales even more by keeping both salespeople?

I think the answer is a no-brainer. We know more feet on the street equals more sales and why would you sacrifice one sales source to attract another? You would invariably have both salespeople go to work for you.

Advertising is merely multiplied salesmanship, permitting advertisers to make more ‘sales calls’ and reach more people than their salespeople alone can reach on a regular basis. But almost on a daily basis we’re hearing from radio salespeople who tell us some of their clients are abandoning their radio campaigns in favour of social media.

Even more ludicrous, we’re hearing that some advertisers say they don’t notice a drop off in business when they abandon their radio audiences.

If they terminated one of their salespeople who had a loyal following, they wouldn’t notice an immediate drop in sales either. Depending upon their product and sales cycle it could take months, or even years, before the marketplace learned where that sales person went or that they had left.

The effect of having two media working in tandem can be even more powerful than having two salespeople because there may not be synergies between salespeople, but there are huge synergies between media.

Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the power of synergies when he said, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The impact of a multimedia campaign, like radio and social media, is certainly greater than the impact of one media alone.

And unfortunately for advertisers who abandon tried and proven radio, there is another force at work in advertising called momentum. The momentum they built with radio doesn’t quit the moment they leave radio, but by the time they realise they’re losing momentum it may be too late, or very expensive, to regain it.

Our Local Share-of-Mind Surveys are proving the power of radio in markets across North America and are helping radio sales executives to increase their local-direct sales.

There is no doubt about the explosive growth of digital. But it still has a long way to go to catch up to radio.

So you think your advertisers are flocking to social media? Maybe not. Maybe social media salespeople are flocking to them.

Twitter, for example, invested a whopping 44% of their revenue in marketing and sales to capture a 111% revenue increase last year.

Now, I’m not suggesting for a minute that broadcasters should have a 44% cost of sale. But you almost certainly are not going to experience sales increases by cutting your marketing and sales investments.

The good old days of only competing with a few local stations and the local paper are long gone. Your prospects are being sold by the marketing automation software folks, social media salespeople, web designers, SEO folks, Google AdWords, and many more from around the globe every week.

Click on this link to see what other publicly held companies are investing in marketing and sales

Local radio is not going to sell itself.

And….I know that you know the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

What are you doing to increase your sales in 2016?

Our suite of revenue-development products, from local Top of Mind Awareness surveys to our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system, is helping stations across North America to increase their sales.

Contact [email protected] to discuss how we can build a custom revenue solutions program to increase your sales in 2016.

The next time you are talking to a prospect who is infatuated by social media, try not talking to them about your ‘audience.’

Our local Share of Mind Surveys consistently prove broadcast’s role in driving more online traffic. Contact [email protected] to inquire about conducting a survey in your market.