Having a brand with a broad target audience is both a blessing and a curse. Almost anyone can be a client, but how do you market to everyone? Where can you go to reach young and old, men and women, tech-savvy and the completely unplugged? The answer has been with you your whole life – yep, that’s right, it’s good ol’ terrestrial radio.
How does radio get phenomenal ratings across almost every demographic imaginable? To start, radio has a tremendous reach. Even in areas where TV signals are fuzzy and Wi-fi is a reach of a dream, you can usually tune into a local station. The numbers reflect radio’s huge reach: 93% of Americans listen to terrestrial radio. That’s unparallelled. It’s a bigger proportion of our population than that of TV viewership or smartphone use.
That number may surprise those that assume that young people just don’t turn to radio. Contrary to popular belief, millennials have not rejected radio to fully embrace streaming. It’s why even the most technologically advanced new cars on the road still feature an AM/FM radio in the sound system. When 92% of millennials listen to radio weekly, it’s safe to say that advertising on radio is sure to capture their attention.
Few would be surprised to hear that 94% of baby boomers are weekly radio listeners, but what about Generation X? They’re a valuable demographic to reach, but don’t necessarily have the same tastes as their predecessors. Do they love radio as much as the generations they’re sandwiched between? Yep! They’re actually the most active radio listeners: 95% of Generation X’ers tune into radio weekly, spending an average of 13.5 hours with it each week. Everyone, from the oldest baby boomers born in 1950 to the youngest millennials of 1996, still likes to tune into their favorite stations and listen to some old-school, terrestrial radio.
What does this mean for you? Advertising in radio offers a uniquely broad audience. Making the assumption that a digital marketing campaign via your customer’s smartphones is a safe bet to reach the largest population is a costly mistake when you consider how many millions more Americans are consistently listening to radio rather than using a smartphone. If you offer services for pretty much anyone – why not advertise to pretty much everyone?
