Boston area business owners have an abundance of options for marketing their goods and services to local consumers. New research from Nielsen, however, indicates that advertising on Boston radio is still the best way to reach local shoppers.
Every week, according to Nielsen, Boston radio reaches 3.3 million adult consumers. This is significantly more than are reached by social media, local TV stations and cable systems, newspapers, streaming video and audio, and podcasts.
In addition to listening to their favorite Boston radio stations over the air, Nielsen reports that 931,966 adults also listen to local stations online every month.
As a matter of fact, according to a study conducted by Edison Research during the third quarter of 2022, among Adults 25-54, 17% of all time spent listening to local AM/FM stations occurs online. This share of online listening has nearly doubled since 2016.
Furthermore, the Edison research study reveals that adult consumers spend 74% of their time using ad-supported, audio media listening to AM/FM radio stations. Radio's share is almost six times greater than the time spent listening to podcasts. The share of listening to Pandora, Spotify, and SiriusXM combined is equal to only 17% of the share commanded by AM/FM radio.
Boston radio's dominant reach among local consumers is critical to the success of any advertising campaign.
According to a Nielsen study, after the actual content of the commercial message itself, reach is the most potent advertising element that can drive sales. Reach is more important than brand, recency, or even context. As we've seen, Boston radio provides local business owners with the most significant reach among consumers.
Local radio's extraordinary advertising reach among Boston consumers contributes to the medium's unrivaled return-on-invest for From April through July of 2021, Nielsen measured the sales results of a radio advertising campaign conducted by a major retailer. The study utilized portable people meter technology to segment consumers into two discrete categories: those who were exposed to the retailer's advertising campaign and those who were not.
Nielsen was then able to match the consumers in each segment to their credit/debit or shopper card purchase behavior. Consequently, the study decisively measured how sales were affected by the retailer's advertising campaign.
Here are the key takeaways from the Nielsen study:
- One or two exposures to the radio campaign resulted in a 22.4% increase in the number of shoppers
- Three to six exposures to the radio campaign resulted in a 7.6% increase in the number of shoppers
- Exposure to the radio campaign increased the number of transactions among the retailer's existing customers by 11%
- Exposure to the radio campaign increased the number of transactions by the retailer's most active customers by 31.2%
- Exposure to the retailer's radio campaign generated a sales increase of 9.7%
Most importantly, the Nielsen study revealed that every $1000 that the retailer invested in the radio advertising campaign returned $13,000 in sales. A 13-time ROI.
Boston business owners should know that these findings support 22 other Nielsen studies that indicate, on average, that advertising on local radio delivers a 10-time return on investment.
AdAge, a trade magazine for advertising professionals, calls these types of returns "eye-popping." The magazine goes on to say radio's ROI is superior to commercials on TV, online, and social media.
To learn more about Nielsen's latest ROI study, click here.
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