Saturday, June 26, 2010

Is Anybody Listening?

Organizations of all sizes are scaling back their marketing budgets due to declined revenues in a recessionary period. This is especially true for traditional media which saw a 67% decrease in 2009 ad spending*.

What has since transpired is a shift to less expensive marketing solutions such as email, search and social media. The shift in ad dollars from traditional media to online and social media has inevitably created a unique opportunity for advertisers. Traditional media, radio in particular, have a lot of unsold inventory available.

Most radio stations run an average of 15 ad units per hour which means there are around 1.8 million ad units per day and 657 million ad units per year. On average, 5-15% of that inventory goes unsold annually. That is a lot of unsold inventory! And a majority of the inventory is prime airtime. If radio stations cannot monetize their unsold inventory, they will lose that potential ad revenue and most stations cannot afford that option.

They are desperately looking for last minute advertisers, even if they have to sell their inventory for significantly reduced rates.

And even though ad dollars overall are slipping, the radio audience hasn't gone anywhere. In fact, the audience is holding strong - up 3% from 2007-2009.** Advertisers have the ability to capitalize on this trend and ultimately are in a win/win position.

With access to prime unsold inventory available at reduced rates (which means greater reach without spending more ad dollars), advertisers can reach and engage the highly coveted, loyal radio audience...who are still listening.

Somebody IS listening!